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THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

JUL. 23 1902 

COPYRIGHT ENTRY 

QJ&j o* /^o> 

CLASS OLXXC. No 


COPY A. 


Copyright, 1902, 

By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 


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1 1 








"W/* 


OCTAVE FEUILLETS NOVELS 


To be serious seriously is the way of medioc- 
rity. To be serious gaily is not such an easy mat- 
ter. To look on at the pantomime of things, and 
to see, neatly separated, tragedy here, comedy op- 
posite — to miss the perpetual dissolution and reso- 
lution of the one into and out of the other — is 
inevitable when eyes are purblind. Diis aliter 
visum. Olympus laughs because it perceives so 
many capital reasons for pulling a long face ; and 
half the time pulls a long face simply to keep 
from laughing. I imagine it is in some measure 
the Olympian manner of seeing which explains 
the gay seriousness of the work of Octave Feuillet. 

Octave Feuillet possesses to an altogether re- 
markable degree the art of being serious not only 
gaily, but charmingly. This, to begin with, places 
him and his stories in a particular atmosphere ; and, 
if we consider it, I think we shall recognise that 
atmosphere as something very like the old familiar 
atmosphere of the fairy-tale. At any rate, there 


A 


v 


Octave Feuillet’s Novels 


is a delicate, a fanciful symbolism in Feuillet’s 
work, which breathes a fragrance unmistakably 
reminiscent of the enchanted forest. For an in- 
stance, one may recall the chapter in Un Mariage 
dans le Monde which relates the escapade of Lionel 
and his betrothed on the day before their wedding. 
A conventional mother, busy with preparations for 
the ceremony, intrusts her daughter to the chap- 
eronage of an old aunt, who is, we might suppose, 
exactly the person for the office. But old aunts 
are sometimes wonderfully made ; sometimes they 
keep the most unlooked-for surprises up those 
capacious old-fashioned sleeves of theirs. This one 
was a fairy godmother in disguise, and, I suspect, 
a pupil of the grimly-benevolent Blackstick. With 
good-humoured cynicism, she remarks that the hap- 
piest period of even the happiest married life is the 
day before it begins, and she advises her young 
charges to make the most of it — chases them, 
indeed, from her presence. “ Be off with you, my 
children ! Come, be off with you at once ! ” They 
escape to the park, where they romp like a pair of 
truant school-children. That is all ; but in Feuil- 
let’s hands it becomes a fairy idyl. It serves, be- 
sides, the symbolic purpose of striking at the out- 
set the note of joyousness which he means to re- 
peat at the end, though the book is one that 


vi 


Octave Feuillet’s Novels 


threatens, almost to the last page, to end on a 
note of despair. For Un Mariage dans le Monde , 
if far from being the most successful of Feuillet’s 
novels, exhibits, none the less, some of his cleverest 
craftsmanship. He hoodwinks us into the fear 
that he meditates disaster, only pleasantly, genial- 
ly, at the right moment, to disappoint us with the 
denouement we could have wished. 

Feuillet’s geniality, for that matter, runs through 
all his books, and is one of the vital principles of 
his talent. It is never the flaccid geniality, the 
amiability, of the undiscerning person ; it is, rather, 
the wise and alert geniality of the benign magician, 
who is sometimes constrained to weave black 
spells, because that is a part of the game, and in 
the day’s work, as it were, but who puts his heart 
only into the weaving of spells that are rose-col- 
oured. This is perhaps why Feuillet’s nice people 
nearly always take flesh and live and breathe, his 
horrid people hardly ever — another resemblance, 
by-the-bye, between him and the writer of fairy- 
tales. The nice women, with their high-bred lovers, 
who step so daintily through his pages, to the flut- 
ter of perfumed fans and the rustle of fine silks, 
are as convincing as the palpitantly convincing 
princesses of Hans Andersen and Grimm ; but 
Feuillet’s villains and adventuresses, like the ogres 
vii 


Octave Feuillet’s Novels 


and the witches we never very heartily believe in, 
are, for the most part, the merest stereotypes of 
vice and wickedness, always artificial, too often a 
trifle absurd. 

In Monsieur de C amors , for example, we have an 
elaborate study of a man who has determined to live 
by the succinct principle, “ Evil, be thou my good ” 
— a succinct enough principle, in all conscience, 
though Feuillet requires a lengthy chapter and a 
suicide to enunciate it. The idea, if not original, 
might, in some hands, lend itself to interesting 
development ; but not so in Feuillet’s. From the 
threshold we feel that he is handicapped by his 
theme. It hangs round his neck like the mill-stone 
of the adage ; it checks his artistic impulses, ob- 
scures his artistic instincts. The quips and cranks, 
the wreathed smiles, of Feuillet the humourist, 
were out of place in a stupendous epopee of this 
sort ; so, for the sake of a psychological abstrac- 
tion, which hasn’t even the poor merit of novelty, 
we must look on ruefully, while our merryman, 
divested of cap and bells, proses to the end of his 
four sad hundred pages. There are novelists who 
must work with an abstraction, who can see their 
characters and their incidents only as they illustrate 
an abstraction ; and these also achieve their effects 
and earn their rewards. But Feuillet belongs in a 
viii 


Octave Feuillet’s Novels 


different galley. A handful of human nature, a 
pleasing countryside, and Paris in the distance — 
these are his materials. The philosophy and the plot 
may come as they will, and it really doesn’t much 
matter if they never come at all. To give Feuil- 
let a subject is to attach a chain and ball to his 
pen. He is never so debonair, so sympathetic, so 
satisfying a writer, as when he has something just 
short of nothing to write about. 

In Monsieur de Camors he has a tremendous 
deal to write about ; his subject weighs his pen to 
the earth. The result is a book that’s a monstros- 
ity, and a protagonist who’s a monster. Louis de 
Camors is as truly a monster as any green dragon 
that ever spat fire or stole king’s daughters (though 
by no means so exciting a monster), and he hasn’t 
even the virtue of being a monster that hangs to- 
gether. For, while we are asked to think of him 
as destitute of natural affections, he is at the same 
time shown to us as the fond idolater of his wife, 
his wife’s mother, and his son. On his son’s ac- 
count, indeed, he goes so far as to spend a long 
cold night in a damp and uncomfortable wood, 
only to be dismissed in the morning without the 
embrace, in the hope of gaining which he has vio- 
lated his philosophy and taken the chances of rheu- 
matism. Altogether, a man devoid of affections, 


IX 


Octave Feuillet’s Novels 


who loves his son, his wife, and his mother-in-law, 
may be regarded as doing pretty well. Again 
(since we are on the chapter of inconsistencies), 
in that dreary and pompous letter written to Louis 
by his father, which expounds the text of what 
becomes the son’s rule of conduct, he is gravely 
charged to fling religion and morality out of the 
window, but to cherish “honour” as it were his 
life. “ It is clear that a materialist can’t be a saint, 
but he can be a gentleman, and that is something,” 
complacently writes the elder Comte de Camors. 
Louis, however, though he makes loud acts of 
faith in this inexpensive gospel, never hesitates to 
betray his friend, to seduce the wife of his bene- 
factor, nor to marry an unsuspecting child, who 
loves him, for the sheer purpose of screening an 
intrigue with “ another lady,” which he still intends 
to carry on. Feuillet, perhaps, saves his face by 
heaping upon this impossible being’s head all the 
punishments that are poetically due to crime, but 
he doesn’t save Monsieur de Camors. It is a dis- 
mal volume, uncommonly hard to read. And yet 
— art will out ; and dismal as it is, it presents to 
us one of Feuillet’s most captivating women, Louis 
de Camors’ ingenuous little wife. Listen to her 
artless pronouncement upon Monsieur’s evangel 
of “ honour.” “ Mon Dieu,” she says, “ I’m not 


Octave Feuillet’s Novels 


sure, but it seems to me that honour apart from 
morality is nothing very great, and that morality 
apart from religion is nothing at all. It’s like a 
chain : honour hangs in the last link, like a flower ; 
but when the chain is broken, the flower falls with 
the rest.” 

If, however, Feuillet’s villains are failures, his 
adventuresses and bad women are grotesquer fail- 
ures still. And no wonder. His reluctance to 
fashion an ugly thing out of material that would, 
in the natural course of his impressions, suggest to 
him none but ideas of beauty, is quite enough to 
account for it. Octave Feuillet is too much a 
gentleman, too much a preux chevalier , to be able 
to get any intellectual understanding of a bad 
woman ; the actual operations of a bad woman’s 
soul are things he can get no “ realizing sense ” of. 
So he dresses up a marionette, which shall do all 
the wicked feminine things his game necessitates, 
which shall plot and poison, wreck the innocent 
heroine’s happiness, attitudinize as a fiend in wom- 
an’s clothing, and even, at a pinch, die a violent 
death, but which shall never let us forget that it is 
stuffed with saw-dust and moved by strings. Ma- 
dame de Campvallon, Sabine Tallevaut, Madem- 
oiselle Helouin, even Julia de Trecoeur — the 
more they change, the more they are the same : 


XI 


Octave Feuillet’s Novels 


sister-puppets, dolls carved from a common parent- 
block, to be dragged through their appointed ca- 
reers of improbable naughtiness. You can recog- 
nise them at once by their haunting likeness to 
the proud beauties of the hair-dresser’s window. 
They are always statuesque, always cold, reserved, 
mysterious, serpentlike, goddesslike — everything, 
in fine, that bad women of flesh and blood are not. 
Octave Feuillet, the wit and the man of the world, 
knows this as well as we do ; and knowing it, he 
tries, by verbal fire-works, to make us forget it. 
“ She charms me — she reminds me of a sorceress,” 
says some one of Sabine Tallevant. “ Do you no- 
tice, she walks without a sound ? Her feet scarcely 
touch the earth — she walks like a somnambulist — 
like Lady Macbeth.” It is the old trick, the tra- 
ditional bonimcnt of the showman ; but not all the 
boniments in Feuillet’s sack can make us believe in 
Sabine Tallevaut. 

One can recognise Feuillet’s bad women, too, 
by the uncanny influence they immediately cast 
upon his men. “ More taciturn than ever, absent, 
strange, as if she were meditating some profound 
design, all at once she seemed to wake ; she lifted 
her long lashes, let her blue eyes wander here 
and there, and suddenly looked straight at Ca- 
mors, who was conscious of a thrill” — that is 


Octave Feuillet’s Novels 


how Mme. de Campvallon does it, and the fact 
is conclusive, so far as her moral character is in 
question. None of Feuillet’s good women would 
ever dream of making a man “thrill” at her first 
encounter with him. But Feuillet’s bad women 
will stop at nothing. Julia de Trdcoeur takes her 
own step-father, a middle-aged, plain, stout, pro- 
saic country gentleman, and throws him into a 
paroxysm that has to be expressed in this wise : 
“It was a mad intoxication, which the savour 
of guilt only intensified. Duty, loyalty, honour, 
whatsoever presented itself as an obstacle to his 
passion, did but exasperate its fury. The pagan 
Venus had bitten him in the heart, and injected 
her poisons. A vision of Julia’s fatal beauty was 
present without surcease, in his burning brain, 
before his troubled eyes. Avidly, in spite of 
himself, he drank in her languors, her perfumes, 
her breath.” 

Julia de Trdcceur has sometimes been called 
Feuillet’s master-piece. One eminent critic re- 
marks that in writing it Feuillet “ dived into the 
vast ocean of human nature, and brought up a 
pearl.” Well, there are pearls and pearls; there 
are real pearls and artificial pearls ; there are white 
pearls and black pearls. It might seem to some 
of us that Julia de Trdcceur is an artificial black 
xiii 


Octave Feuillet’s Novels 


one. Frankly, as a piece of literature, the novel 
is just in three words a fairly good melodrama. 
Julia herself is the proper melodramatic heroine. 
Her beauty is “ fatal,” her passions are ungovern- 
able, and she dearly loves a scene. Now she con- 
templates retirement into a convent, now matri- 
mony, now a leap from the cliffs ; and each 
change of mood is inevitably the occasion for 
much ranting and much attitudinizing. Her his- 
tory is a fairly good melodrama. That it is not 
a tip-top melodrama is due to the circumstance 
that Feuillet was too intelligent a man to be able 
to make it so. He can’t keep out his wit ; and 
every now and again his melodrama forgets itself, 
and becomes sane comedy. He can’t keep out 
his touches of things simple and human ; the 
high-flown, unhuman remainder suffers from the 
contrast. 

Why, one wonders, with his flair for the sub- 
tleties of the normal, with his genius for extract- 
ing their charm from trifles, why should Feuillet 
have turned his hand to melodrama at all ? Is 
it partly because he lived in and wrote for a 
highly melodramatic period — “ the dear, good days 
of the dear, bad Second Empire ” ? Partly, too, 
no doubt, because, as some one has said, the artist 
can never forgive, though he can easily forget, his 


xiv 


Octave Feuillet’s Novels 


limitations. Like the comic actor who will not 
be happy till he has appeared as Hamlet, the 
novelist, also, will cherish his unreasoning aspira- 
tions. And then, melodrama is achieved before 
you know it. Any incident that is not in itself 
essentially ^dramatic will become melodramatic, 
when you try to treat it, it will become forced 
and stagey, if dramatic incidents are not the spon- 
taneous issue of your talent. Dramatic incidents 
are far from being the spontaneous issue of Feuil- 
let’s talent ; they are its changelings. His talent 
is all preoccupied in fathering children of a quite 
opposite complexion. Style, suavity, elegance, 
sentiment, colour, atmosphere — these are Feuil- 
let’s preoccupations. Action, incident, are, when 
necessary, necessary evils. So his action, when 
he is* at his best, loiters, saunters, or even stops 
dead-still ; until suddenly he remembers that, after 
all, his story must some time reach its period, and 
that something really must happen to advance it. 
Thereupon, hurriedly, perfunctorily, carelessly, he 
“ knocks off” a few pages of incident — of incident 
fast and furious — which will, as likely as not, read 
like the prompt-book of a play at the Adelphi. 

That absurd Sabine Tallevaut, whose feet 
scarcely touch the earth, with poison in her hand 
and adultery in her heart, is the one disfigurement 


xv 


Octave Feuillet’s Novels 


upon what might otherwise have been Feuillet’s 
most nearly perfect picture. In spite of her, La 
Morte remains a work of exquisite and tender 
beauty ; and I’m not sure whether Aliette de 
Vaudricourt isn’t the very queen of all his women. 
If Feuillet was too much a gentleman to be able 
to paint a bad woman, he was too much a man 
not to revel in painting a charming one. As we 
pass through his gallery of delightful heroines, 
from Aliette de Vaudricourt to Clothilde de Lu- 
can, to Mme. de Tecle, Marie FitzGerald, “ Miss 
Mary” de Camors, Marguerite Laroque, even to 
Jeanne de Maurescamp, we can feel the man’s 
admiration pulsing in every stroke of the artist’s 
brush. He takes the woman’s point of view, 
espouses her side of the quarrel, offers himself 
as her champion wherever he finds that a cham- 
pion is needed. And he sticks to his allegiance 
even after, as in the case of Jeanne de Maures- 
camp, she might seem to have forfeited her claim 
to it. Of Jeanne he can still bring himself to 
say, at the end of IL Histoire (Tune Parzszenne : 
“ Decidedly, this angel had become a monster ; 
but the lesson of her too-true story is, that, in 
the moral order, no one is born a monster. God 
makes no monsters. It is man who makes them.” 

In this instance, however, Feuillet is, perhaps, 


xvi 


Octave Feuillet’s Novels 


rather the apologist than the champion. His con- 
tention is that Jeanne was by nature virtuous, and 
that her virtue has been destroyed by the stu- 
pidity and the brutality of her ill-chosen hus- 
band. But Feuillet has too fine and too judicious 
a wit to insist upon the note of strenuousness. 
Seeing the woman’s point of view, he sees its 
humours as well as its pathos. Admitting that 
men for the most part are grossly unworthy of 
her, and that woman has infinitely the worst of 
it in the arrangements of society, admitting and 
deploring it, he doesn’t profess to know how to 
set it right ; he has no practical reform to preach. 
His business is to divert us, and, if he must be 
serious, to be serious gaily and charmingly. And 
perhaps he is most serious, not when composing 
an epitaph for Jeanne de Maurescamp, but when 
he is lightly saying (in the person of the Comtesse 
Jules): “Always remember, my poor dear, that 
women are born to suffer — and men to be suf- 
fered.” 

Charmingly serious himself, Feuillet’s heroines 
likewise are always serious, in their different 
charming ways. They may be wilful and capri- 
cious, like Marguerite Laroque, or fond of the 
excitements of the world, like Mme. de Rias, 
or wise in their generation, like Mme. de la 
xvii 


Octave Feuillet’s Novels 


Veyle, but they are always womanly and human 
at the red-ripe of the heart, and they are almost 
always religious. A sceptic, scepticlike, Feuil- 
let utterly discountenances scepticism in woman. 
Even his most recusant of masculine unbelievers, 
the Vicomte de Vaudricourt, proclaims his prefer- 
ence for a pious wife. “ Not, of course,” he says, 
“that I exaggerate the moral guarantees offered 
by piety, or that I mistake it for a synonym of 
virtue. But still it is certain that with women 
the idea of duty is rarely dissociated from religious 
ideas. Because religion doesn’t keep all of tkem 
straight, it is an error to conclude that it keeps 
none of them straight ; and it’s always well to be 
on the safe side.” Elsewhere Feuillet gives us 
his notion of the moral outlook of the woman 
who is not religious. Evil for her, he tells us, 
ceases to be evil, and becomes simply inconve - 
nance . ’Tis a very mannish, a very Frenchman- 
nish, way of viewing the thing. 

One has sometimes heard it maintained that 
only women can reveal themselves with perfect 
grace in a form so intimate as letters or a diary ; 
that a man’s hand is apt to be too heavy, his 
manner too self-conscious. Perhaps it is Feuil- 
let’s sympathy with women that has made him the 
dab he is at this womanly art. In La Morte, for 
xviii 


Octave Feuillet’s Novels 


instance, we learn vastly more of Bernard’s char- 
acter from his diary than we should from thrice 
the number of pages of third-personal exposition. 
The letters from Marie to her mother, in Mon- 
sieur de Camors , furnish the single element of 
relief in that lugubrious composition. Even those 
that pass between Rias and Mme. de Lorris, in 
Un Mariage dans le Monde — though their sub- 
ject-matter is sufficiently depressing, though the 
man is an egotistical cad, and the great lady who 
is giving him her help and pity ought rather to 
despise and spurn him — are exceedingly good and 
natural letters ; and the letter from Mme. de Rias 
to Kevern, which ends the book, is a very jewel 
of a letter. But it is in the diary of his poor 
young man that Feuillet’s command of the first 
person singular attains its most completely satis- 
fying results. 

Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre is a tale 
of youth, for the young ; and the eldest of us may 
count himself still young if he can still enjoy it. 
Here we have romance pure and simple, a thing 
of glamour all compact ; and the danger-line that 
so definitely separates romance from absurdity, yet 
leaves them so perilously near together, is never 
crossed. The action passes in the country, and in 
the most delectable sort of country at that — the 


xix 


Octave Feuillet’s Novels 


country of the appreciative and imaginative cit. 
Before all things a Parisian, Feuillet is never par- 
ticularly happy in presenting Paris. His Paris is 
correct enough in architecture and topography, no 
doubt ; but the spirit of Paris, the whatever it is 
which makes Paris Paris, and not merely a large 
town, somehow evades him. Possibly he knew 
his Paris too well ; familiarity had bred a kind of 
inability to see, to focus, a kind of “ staleness. ’’ 
Anyhow, it is when he gets away from Paris that he 
wakes to the opportuneness and the opportunities, 
of scenic backgrounds. His eye, “stale” to town, 
is now all eagerness, all freshness. Impressions of 
beauty crowd upon him. He sees the country as 
it is doubtful whether the countryman ever sees 
it — the countryman who has been surfeited with 
it, who has long since forgotten its first magical 
effect. He brings to the country the sensitiveness 
which is the product of the city’s heat and strife. 
Dew and wild flowers, the green of grass and trees, 
the music of birds, the flutter of their wings, the 
pure air, the wide prospects, the changing lights — 
it is to the appreciative and imaginative townsman 
that these speak their finest message. 

But Feuillet is more than a townsman : he is 
a teller of fairy-tales. To him the country is a 
free playground for his fancy. There beautiful 


xx 


Octave Feuillet’s Novels 


ladies and gallant knights have nothing to do but 
to love and to sing ; and there, without destroying 
our illusion, he can leave them to live happily for- 
ever after. The Brittany, in which Maxime and 
Marguerite meet and misunderstand and woo and 
wed, is not that northwestern corner of France 
that one can reach in a few hours by steamer from 
Southampton ; it is a Brittany of fairy woods and 
streams and castles, that never was, save in the 
poet’s dream. For if others of Feuillet’s novels 
have been only in part fairy-tales, or only rather 
like fairy-tales, the Romance of a Poor Young Alan 
is a fairy-tale wholly and absolutely. The person- 
ages of the story are the invariable personages of 
the fairy-tale : the prince disguised as a wood-cut- 
ter, in the Marquis de Champcey disguised as a 
farm-bailiff ; the haughty princess, who will not 
love, yet loves despite her will, and is rewarded by 
the wood-cutter’s appearing in all the prince’s splen- 
dour at the proper time, in Marguerite Laroque ; 
the bad prince and the bad princess, in M. de 
Bevallon and Mile. Hdlouin ; the good magician, 
in M. Laubdpin ; and the delightfullest of conceiv- 
able fairy godmothers, in Mile, de Porhoet. And 
the progress of the story is the wonted progress of 
the fairy-tale. There is hardship, but it is overcome ; 
there are perils, but they are turned ; misconceptions, 
b xxi 


Octave Feuillet’s Novels 


but they are cleared up. There are empty pockets, 
but there is the bag of gold waiting to fill them. 
The marvellous never shocks our credulity, the 
longest-armed coincidences seem the most natural 
happenings in the world. We are not in the least 
surprised when, at the right moment, the bag of 
gold appears at Maxime’s feet, enabling him to 
marry ; it is the foregone consequence of his hav- 
ing a fairy godmother. We don’t even raise the 
eyebrow of doubt when the Laroques contemplate 
relinquishing their fortune to the poor, so that 
Marguerite may come to her lover empty-handed ; 
that is the accepted device of the fairy-tale for 
administering to the proud princess her well- 
deserved humiliation. In one small detail only 
does the fairy-tale teller lose himself, and let the 
novelist supplant him ; that is where he implies 
that the bad prince and princess, after their wicked 
wiles had been discovered, took the train to Paris. 
They did nothing of the sort. They were turned 
into blocks of stone, and condemned to look on at 
the happiness of the good prince and princess from 
the terrace of the Chateau de Laroque. 

But it must not be supposed, because the per- 
sonages of the Roinance of a Poor Young Man are 
fairy-tale personages, that therefore they are not 
human personages. It is, on the contrary, the 
xxii 


Octave Feuillet’s Novels 

humanity of its personages that makes your fairy- 
tale interesting. You stick to human men and 
women, you merely more or less improve the con- 
ditions of their existence, you merely revise and 
amend a little the laws of the external universe — 
an easy thing to do, in spite of the unthinking 
people who prate of those laws as immutable. 
Then the fun consists in seeing how human nature 
will persist and react. Surely none of Feuillet’s 
heroines is more engagingly human than Margue- 
rite Laroque. It is true that we see her only 
through the eyes of a chronicler who happens to 
be infatuated with her, but we know what dis- 
count to allow for that. We are confident from 
her first entrance that if, as we hope, our poor 
young man’s head is screwed on as poor young 
men’s heads should be, Marguerite will turn it. 
We learn that she is capricious, therefore Maxime 
will be constant ; that she is proud, therefore, in 
all humility, he will be prouder ; that she is hum- 
ble, therefore, in all pride, he will humble himself 
at her feet. But antecedent to all this, and just 
because his ostensible business in Brittany is the 
management of the Laroques’ estate, no one needs 
to warn us that his real business will be the con- 
quest of the Laroques’ daughter. We can foresee 
with half an eye that the affairs of the estate are 
xxiii 


Octave Feuillet’s Novels 


affairs which our disguised marquis will consci- 
entiously neglect. Indeed, Mme. Laroque her- 
self seems to have been haunted by something of 
the same premonition. What does she say to the 
sous-prdfet ? “Mon Dieu, ne m’en parlez pas ; 
il-y-a la un mystere inconcevable. Nous pensons 
que c’est quelque prince deguise. . . . Entre 
nous, mon cher sous-prdfet, je crois bien que c’est 
un tres-mauvais intendant, mais vraiment c’est un 
horn me tres-agreable.” 

She might have added “ un homme tres-digne.” 
For if we have a fault to find with Maxime, it is 
that he seems just possibly a thought too “ digne.” 
But that is a fault common to so many men in 
fiction. French novelists, like English lady novel- 
ists, are terribly apt to make their men too “ digne ” 
— when they don’t make them too unspeakably in - 
digne. Maxime, however, we mustn’t forget, is his 
own portraitist, and we’ll hope in this detail the 
portrait errs. For the rest, we are content to ac- 
cept it as he paints it. lie is a poor young man, 
but he is also a fairy prince. Therefore he can 
vaunt himself as an ordinary poor young man 
could hardly do with taste. He can perform and 
narrate his prodigies of skill and valour without 
offending. He can rescue an enormous Newfound- 
land dog from a raging torrent, for example, with 


xxiv 


Octave Feuillet’s Novels 


the greatest ease in the world, an exploit you or I 
might have found ticklish, and he can tell us of it 
afterward, a proceeding you or I might have shrunk 
from as vainglorious. For Maxime is a fairy prince ; 
the dog belongs to the fairy princess ; and the bad 
prince, the rival, who is standing by, doesn’t know 
how to swim. Again, with splendid indifference, 
he can accomplish and record his leap from the 
Tour d’ Elven to save the fairy princess from a 
situation that might, in Fairyland, have compro- 
mised her ; hadn’t the princess unjustly impugned 
his honour, and insinuated that the situation was 
one he had deliberately brought to pass ? “ Mon- 

sieur le Marquis de Champcey, y a-t-il eu beaucoup 
de laches dans votre famille avant vous?” superb- 
ly demands Marguerite ; and we can see her kin- 
dling eye, the scornful curl of her lip, we can hear 
the disdainful tremor of her voice. Maxime 
would be a poor-spirited poor young man, indeed, 
if, after that, he should hesitate to jump. And 
he has his immediate compensation. “ Maxime ! 
Maxime!” cries the haughty princess, now all 
remorse, “par grace, par pitie ! au nom du bon 
Dieu, parlez-moi ! pardonnez-moi ! ” So that, 
though the prince goes away with a broken arm, 
the lover carries exultancy in his heart. 

Is Maxime perhaps just a thought too “digne,” 


XXV 


Octave Feuillet’s Novels 


also, in his relations with his little sister — when 
he visits her at school, for instance, and promises 
to convey the bread she cannot eat to some deserv- 
ing beggar ? At the moment he is the most de- 
serving beggar he chances to know of, but he is 
resolved to keep his beggary a secret from Helene. 
“ Cher Maxime,” says she, “ a bientot, n’est-ce pas ? 
Tu me diras si tu as rencontre un pauvre, si tu lui 
as donne mon pain, et s’il l’a trouvd bon.” And 
Maxime, in his journal : “ Oui, Helene, j’ai ren- 
contre un pauvre, et je lui ai donnd ton pain, qu’il 
a emporte comme une proie dans sa mansarde soli- 
taire, et il l’a trouve bon ; mais c’etait un pauvre 
sans courage, car il a pleure en devorant l’aumone 
de tes petites mains bien-aimdes. Je te dirai tout 
cel&, Hdlene, car il est bon que tu saches qu’il y a 
sur la terre des souffrances plus sdrieuses que tes 
souffrances d’enfant : je te dirai tout, exceptd le 
nom du pauvre.” It certainly is “ digne,” isn’t it ? 
Is it a trifle too much so ? Isn’t it a trifle priggish, 
a trifle preachy ? Is it within the limits of pure 
pathos ? Or does it just cross the line ? I don’t 
know. 

I am rather inclined to think that Maxime is 
at his best — at once most human and most fairy 
princelike — in his relations with the pre-eminently 
human fairy Porhoet. He is entirely human, and 
xxvi 


Octave Feuillet’s Novels 


weak, and nice, when he blurts out to her the 
secret of his high birth. Hadn’t she just been 
boasting of her own, and invidiously citing Mon- 
sieur l’intendant as a typical plebeian ? “ En ce 

qui me concerne, mademoiselle,” he has the human 
weakness to retort, “ vous vous trompez, car ma 
famille a eu l’honneur d’etre alliee a la votre, et 
reciproquement.” He remains human and weak 
throughout the somewhat embarrassing explana- 
tions that are bound to follow ; and if, in their 
subsequent proceedings, after she has adopted him 
as “ mon cousin,” he will still from time to time 
become a trifle priggish and a trifle preachy, we 
must remember that mortal man, in the hands of 
a French novelist, has to choose between that and 
a career of profligacy. 

It is by his Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre 
that Feuillet is most widely known outside of 
France ; it is by this book that he will “ live,” if 
he is to live. Certainly it is his freshest, his sin- 
cerest, his most consistently agreeable book. 

Henry Harland. 


XXVll 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 


Octave Feuillet was born at Saint-Lo, in 
the depart?nent of the Mane he, on the nth of 
A ugnst , 1821. His father , who belonged to one of 
the oldest Norman families, was secretary-general 
to the prefect, and a little later, in the revolution 
of 18 jo, played a prominent part in politics. A 
hereditary nervousness, amounting finally to a 
disease, alone prevented him, according to Guizot, 
from being given a portfolio in the new ministry . 
Octave inherited his father s excessive sensibility , 
although in later years he held it more under 
control. A fter the death of his mother, which oc- 
curred as he was developing in boyhood, he became 
so melancholy that, at the advice of the physicians, 
he was sent to a school in Paris, where his health 
gradually became re-established ; afterward, at the 
College de Louis-le-Grand ’ he greatly distinguished 
himself as a scholar. It was his father s design 
to prepare him for the diplomatic career, but 
already the desire to write had awakened itself in 


b* 


XXIX 


Biographical Note 

him. When the moment came for choosing a pro- 
fession, Octave timidly confessed his determination 
to make literature his business in life ; the irascible 
old gentleman at Saint-Lo turned him out of the 
house , and cut off his allowance. He returned to 
Paris , and for three years had a hard struggle 
with poverty. During this time, under the encour- 
agement of the great actor Bocage, Octave Feuil- 
let brought out three dra7nas, “ Echec et Mat ,” 
“Palma,” and “La Vieillcsse de Richelieu under 
the pseudonym of “Ddsirt Hazard.” These were 
successful, and the playwright' s father forgave and 
welcomed him back to his favour. Octave remained 
m Paris, actively engaged in literary work, mainly 
dramatic, but gradually in the line of prose fiction 
also. In 1846 he published his novel of “ Po lie Ju- 
ne lie P followed in 1848 by “ Onesta,” in 1849 by 
“ Redemption',' and in 1850 by “ Bellah.” None of 
these are remembered among Octave Feuillet's best 
works, but he was gaining skill and care in compo- 
sition. In 1850, however, he was suddenly sum- 
moned home to Saint-Lo by the increased melan- 
choly of his father, who could no longer safely be 
left alone in the gloomy ancestral mansion which he 
refused to leave. Octave, with resignation, de- 
termined to sacrifice his life to the care of his 
father, and in this piety he was supported by his 


XXX 


Biographical Note 

charming cousin , Val&rie Feuillet, a very accom- 
plished and devoted woman , whom he married in 
1851. For eight years they shared this painful 
exile , the father of Octave scarcely permitting them 
to leave his sight, and refusing every other species 
of society . Strangely enough, this imprisonment 
was not unfavourable to the novelist's genius ; the 
books he wrote during this period — “ Dalilaj “ La 
Petite Comtesse” (1856), “Le Village ," and finally 
“ Le Rornan d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre (1858 ) — 
being not only far superior to what he had previ- 
ously published, but among the very finest of all his 
works. By a grim coincidence, on almost the 07 ily 
occasio7i 07 i which Octave Feuillet ventured to ab- 
sent himself for a day or two, to be present at the 
perfomnance of his “ Ro77ian d'un feune Hom7ne 
Pauvre ," when it was dramatized in 1858 , the 
father suddenly died while the son was in Paris. 
This was a great shock to Feuillet, who bitterly 
and U7i justly condem7ied himself. He was now, 
however, free, a 7 id, with his wife and childre 7 i, 
he returned to Paris . He was 7iow very success- 
ful, a7id soo7t became a figure at Co7npieg7ie and in 
the great world. In 1862 he published “ Sibylle," 
and was elected a 7nember of the French Academy. 
A great favourite of the Emperor and E7npress, 
he was tempted to combine the social life at Court 


XXXI 


Biographical Note 

with the labours of literature. His health began 
to suffer from the strain , and, to recover, he re- 
tired again to Saint-Lo, where he lived, not in the 
home of his ancestors, but in a little house above 
the ramparts, called Les Paillers ; for the future 
he spent only the winter months in Paris. His 
novels became fewer, but not less carefully pre- 
pared ; he enjoyed a veritable triumph with “ Mon- 
sieur de C amors ” in 1867. Next year he was ap- 
pointed Royal Librarian at Fontainebleau, an office 
which he held till the fall of the Empire. He then 
retired to Les Paillers again, where he had written 
“Julia de Trecceur ” in 1868. The end of his life was 
troubled by domestic bereavement and loss of health ; 
he hurried restlessly from place to place, a prey 
to constant nervous agitation. His later writings 
were numerous, but had not the vitality of those 
previously mentioned. Octave Feuillet died in 
Paris, December 28, 18 go, and was succeeded at the 
French Academy by Pierre Loti. Octave was the 
type of a sensitive, somewhat melancholy fine gen- 
tleman ; he was very elegant in manners, reserved 
and ceremonious in society, where he held himself 
somewhat remote in the radiance of his delicate 
wit ; but within the bosom of his family he was 
tenderly and almost pathetically demonstrative. 
The least criticism was torture to him, and it is 
xxxii 


Biographical Note 

said that when his comedy of “ La Belle au Bois 
Dormant ” was hissed off the boards of the Vaude- 
ville in 1865, for three weeks afterward the life of 
Feuillet was in danger. Fortunately , however , for 
a “ fiery particle” so sensitive , the greater part of 
his career was one continuous triumph. 

E. G. 


xxxiii 




CONTENTS 


PAGES 

Octave Feuillet’s Novels v-xxvii 

Henry Harland 

Life of Octave Feuillet xxix-xxxiii 

Edmund. Gosse 

The Romance of a Poor Young Man . . 1—248 

The Portraits of Octave Feuillet .... 249-256 

Octave Uzanne 



XXXV 








LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


Octave Feuillet, from a photograph by Goupil, 

1869 Frontispiece 

Fac-similes , in colours , of paintings by Simont Guilhem 

“ You do not ask where I am taking you ” . 81 

I fell on my knees ; I could not keep back 

my tears 162 

I felt her lips on mine. I thought that my 

soul was escaping from me 246 

Portraits in the text 

PAGE 

Octave Feuillet in 1850, after a drawing by 

Monciau 251 

In 1879, after a sketch made in Geneva . . 252 

After a photograph taken in 1880 .... 253 

The last photograph, taken in 1889 .... 253 

Sketch by Dantan, about 1878 254 


xxxvii 












































































































































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THE ROMANCE OF 
A POOR YOUNG MAN 


THE ROMANCE 
OF A POOR YOUNG MAN 


Sursum cor da / 

Paris, April 25, 1S5-. 

The second evening I have passed in this mis- 
erable room, staring gloomily at the bare hearth, 
hearing the dull monotone of the street, and feel- 
ing more lonely, more forsaken, and nearer to 
despair in the heart of this great city than a ship- 
wrecked man shivering on a broken plank in mid- 
ocean. 

I have done with cowardice. I will look my 
destiny in the fac.e till it loses its spectral air. 
I will open my sorrowful heart to the one 
confidant whose pity will not hurt, to that pale 
last friend who looks back at me from the 
glass. I will write down my thoughts and my 
life, not in trivial and childish detail, but without 
serious omissions, and above all without lies. I 
shall love my journal ; it will be a brotherly echo 
to cheat my loneliness, and at the same time a 


x 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

second conscience warning me not to allow any- 
thing to enter into my life which I dare not write 
down calmly with my own hand. 

Now, with sad eagerness I search the past for 
the facts and incidents which should have long 
since enlightened me, had not filial respect, habit, 
and the indifference of a happy idler blinded me. 
I understand now my mother’s deep and constant 
melancholy ; I understand her distaste for society, 
and why she wore that plain, unvaried dress which 
sometimes called forth sarcasms, sometimes wrath 
from my father. — “You look like a servant,” he 
would say to her. 

I could not but be conscious that our family 
life was broken by more serious quarrels, though 
I was never an actual witness of them. All I 
heard were my father’s sharp and imperious tones, 
the murmur of a pleading voice, and stifled sobs. 
These outbursts I attributed to my father’s violent 
and fruitless attempts to revive in my mother the 
taste for the elegant and brilliant life which she 
had once enjoyed as much as becomes a virtuous 
woman, but into which she now accompanied my 
father with a repugnance that grew stronger every 
day. After such crises, my father nearly always 
ran off to buy some costly trinket which my 
mother found in her table-napkin at dinner, and 


2 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

never wore. One day in the middle of winter she 
received a large box of rare flowers from Paris; 
she thanked my father warmly, but directly he 
had left the room, I saw her slightly raise her 
shoulders and look up to heaven with an expres- 
sion of hopeless despair. 

During my childhood and early youth I had a 
great respect for my father, but not much affec- 
tion. Indeed, throughout this period I saw only 
the sombre side of his character — the one side that 
showed itself in domestic life, for which he was 
not fitted. Later, when I was old enough to go 
out with him, I was surprised and charmed to find 
in him a person perfectly new to me. It seemed 
as if, in our old family house, he felt himself con- 
strained by some fatal spell ; once beyond its 
doors, his forehead cleared, his chest expanded, 
and he was young again. “ Now, Maxime,” he 
would cry, “ now for a gallop ! ” And joyously 
we would rush along. His shouts of youthful 
pleasure, his enthusiasm, his fantastic wit, his 
bursts of feeling, charmed my young heart, and I 
longed to bring something of all this back to my 
poor mother, forgotten in her corner at home. I 
began to love my father ; and when I saw all the 
sympathetic qualities of his brilliant nature dis- 
played in all the functions of social life — at hunts 
3 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

and races, balls and dinners — my fondness for him 
became an actual admiration. A perfect horse- 
man, a dazzling talker, a bold gambler, daring and 
open-handed, he became for me the finished type 
of manly grace and chivalrous nobility. Indeed, 
he would speak of himself — smiling with some 
bitterness — as the last of the gentlemen. 

Such was my father in society ; but as soon 
as he returned to his home my mother and I saw 
only a restless, morose, and violent old man. 

My father’s outbursts to a creature so sweet 
and delicate as my mother would certainly have 
revolted me had they not been followed by the 
quick returns of tenderness and the redoubled 
attentions I have mentioned. Justified in my 
eyes by these proofs of penitence, my father 
seemed to be only a naturally kind, warm-hearted 
man sometimes irritated beyond endurance by an 
obstinate and systematic opposition to all his 
tastes and preferences. I thought my mother was 
suffering from some nervous derangement. My 
father gave me to understand so, though, and as I 
thought very properly, he only referred to this 
subject with great reserve. 

I could not understand what were my mother’s 
feelings towards my father ; they were — for me — 
beyond analysis or definition. Sometimes a 
4 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

strange severity glittered in the looks she fixed 
on him ; but it was only a flash, and the next mo- 
ment her beautiful soft eyes and her unchanged 
face showed nothing but tender devotion and 
passionate submission. 

My mother had been married at fifteen, and I 
was nearly twenty-two when my sister, my poor 
Helene, was born. One morning soon afterwards 
my father came out of my mother’s room looking 
anxious. He signed to me to follow him into 
the garden. 

“ Maxime,” he said, after walking in silence 
for a little, “your mother gets stranger and 
stranger.” 

“ She is so ill just now, father.” 

“ Yes, of course. But now she has the oddest 
fancy : she wants you to study law.” 

“ Law ! What ! Does my mother want me, 
at my age, with my birth and position, to sit 
among school-boys on the forms of a college class- 
room ? It is absurd.” 

“ So I think,” said my father dryly, “ but your 
mother is ill, and — there’s no more to be said.” 

I was a young puppy then, puffed up by my 
name, my importance, and my little drawing-room 
successes ; but I was sound at heart, and I wor- 
shipped my mother, with whom I had lived for 
5 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

twenty years in the closest intimacy possible be- 
tween two human souls. I hastened to assure her 
of my obedience ; she thanked me with a sad 
smile and made me kiss my sister who was sleep- 
ing on her lap. 

We lived about a mile and a half from Greno- 
ble, so I could attend the law classes at the uni- 
versity without leaving home. Day by day my 
mother followed my progress with such intense 
and persistent interest that I could not help think- 
ing that she had some stronger motive than the 
fancy of an invalid ; that perhaps my father’s hatred 
and contempt for the practical and tedious side of 
life might have brought about a certain embarrass- 
ment in our affairs which, my mother thought, a 
knowledge of law and a business training would 
enable me to put right. This explanation did 
not satisfy me. No doubt my father had often 
complained bitterly of our losses during the Revo- 
lution, but his complaints had long ceased, and I 
had never thought them well-founded, because, as 
far as I could see, our position was in every way 
satisfactory. 

We lived near Grenoble in our hereditary 
chateau, which was famous in our country as an 
aristocratic and lordly dwelling. My father and I 
have often shot or hunted for a whole day without 
6 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

going off our own land or out of our own woods. 
Our stables were vast, and filled with expensive 
horses of which my father was very fond and very 
proud. Besides, we had a town-house in Paris on 
the Boulevard des Capucines, where comfortable 
quarters were always reserved for occasional visits. 
And nothing in our ordinary way of living could 
suggest either a small income or close manage- 
ment. Even as regards the table, my father in- 
sisted upon a particular degree of delicacy and 
refinement. 

My mothers health declined almost imper- 
ceptibly. In time there came an alteration in her 
disposition. The mouth which, at all events in 
my presence, had spoken only kind words, grew 
bitter and aggressive. Every step I took beyond 
the house provoked a sarcasm. My father was 
not spared, and bore these attacks with a patience 
that seemed to me exemplary, but he got more 
and more into the habit of living away from home. 
He told me that he must have distraction and 
amusement. He always wanted me to go with 
him, and my love of pleasure, and the eagerness 
‘of youth, and, to speak truly, my lack of moral 
courage, made me obey him too readily. 

In September, 185-, there were some races 
near the chateau, and several of my father’s horses 
7 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

were to run. We started early and lunched on 
the course. About the middle of the day, as I 
was riding by the course watching the fortunes of 
a race, one of our men came up and said he had 
been looking for me for more than half an hour. 
He added that my father had already been sent for 
and had gone back to my mother at the chateau, 
and that he wanted me to follow him at once. 

“ But what in Heaven’s name is the matter ? ” 

“ I think madame is worse,” said the servant. 

I set off like a madman. 

When I reached home my sister was playing 
on the lawn in the middle of the great, silent 
courtyard. As I dismounted, she ran up to em- 
brace me, and said, with an air of importance and 
mystery that was almost joyful : 

“The curd has come.” 

I did not, however, perceive any unusual ani- 
mation in the house, nor any signs of disorder 
or alarm. I went rapidly up the staircase, and 
had passed through the boudoir which communi- 
cated with my mother’s room, when the door 
opened softly, and my father appeared. I stopped 
in front of him ; he was very pale, and his lips 
were trembling. 

“ Maxime,” he said, without looking at me, 
“your mother is asking for you.” 

8 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

I wished to question him, but he checked me 
with a gesture, and walked hurriedly towards a 
window, as if to look out. I entered. My 
mother lay half-reclining in an easy-chair, one 
of her arms hanging limply over the side. Again 
I saw on her face, now as white as wax, the ex- 
quisite sweetness and delicate grace which lately 
had been driven away by suffering. Already the 
Angel of Eternal Rest was casting the shadow of 
his wing over that peaceful brow. I fell upon 
my knees ; she half-opened her eyes, raised her 
drooping head with an effort, and enveloped me 
in a long, loving look. Then, in a voice which 
was scarcely more than a broken sigh, she slowly 
spoke these words : 

“ Poor child ! ... I am worn out, you see ! 
Do not weep. You have deserted me a little 
lately, but I have been so trying. We shall meet 
again, Maxime, and we shall understand one an- 
other, my son. I can’t say any more. . . . Remind 
your father of his promise to me. . . . And you, 
Maxime, be strong in the battle of life, and for- 
give the weak.” 

She seemed to be exhausted, and stopped for 
a moment. Then, raising a finger with difficulty, 
and looking at me fixedly, she said: ‘‘Your 
sister ! ” 


9 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

Her livid eyelids closed ; then suddenly she 
opened them, and threw out her arms with a rigid 
and sinister gesture. I uttered a cry ; my father 
came quickly, and, with heartrending sobs, pressed 
the poor martyrs body to his bosom. , 

Some weeks later, at the formal request of my 
father, who said that he was obeying the last wishes 
of her whom we mourned, I left France, and be- 
gan that wandering life which I have led nearly 
up to this day. During a year’s absence my heart, 
becoming more affectionate as the selfish frenzy of 
youth burnt out, urged me to return and renew 
my life at its source, between my mother’s tomb 
and my sister’s cradle. But my father had fixed 
the duration of my travels, and he had not 
brought me up to treat his wishes lightly. He 
wrote to me affectionately, though briefly, show- 
ing no desire to hasten my return. So I was the 
more alarmed when I arrived at Marseilles, two 
months ago, and found several letters from him, 
all feverishly begging me to return at once. 

It was on a sombre February evening, that I 
saw once more the massive walls of our ancient 
house standing out against the light veil of snow 
that lay upon the country. A sharp north wind 
blew in icy gusts ; flakes of frozen sleet dropped 
like dead leaves from the trees of the avenue, and 


io 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

struck the wet soil with a faint and plaintive 
sound. As I entered the court a shadow, which 
I took to be my fathers, fell upon a window of 
the large drawing-room on the ground floor — 
a room which had not been used during my 
mother’s last days. I hurried on, and my father, 
seeing me, gave a hoarse cry, then opened his 
arms to me, and I felt his heart beating wildly 
against my own. 

“ Thou art frozen, my poor child,” he said, 
much against his habit, for he seldom addressed 
me in the second person. “Warm thyself, warm 
thyself. This is a cold room, but I prefer it now ; 
at least one can breathe here.” 

“ Are you well, father ?” 

“ Pretty well, as you see.” 

Leaving me by the fireplace, he resumed his 
walk across the vast salon , dimly lighted by two 
or three candles. I seemed to have interrupted 
this walk of his. This strange welcome alarmed 
me. I looked at my father in dull surprise. 

“ Have you seen my horses?” he said sudden- 
ly, without stopping. 

“ But, father ” 

“ Ah, yes, of course, you’ve only just come.” 
After a silence he continued. “ Maxime,” he said, 
“ I have something to tell you.” 


1 1 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“ I’m listening, father.” 

He did not seem to hear me, but walked about 
a little, and kept on repeating, “ I have something 
to tell you, my son.” At last he sighed deeply, 
passed his hand across his forehead, and sitting 
down suddenly, signed to me to take a seat oppo- 
site to him. Then, as if he wanted to speak and 
had not the courage to do so, his eyes rested on 
mine, and I read in them an expression of suffer- 
ing, humility, and supplication that in a man so 
proud as my father touched me deeply. What- 
ever the faults he found it so hard to confess, I 
felt from the bottom of my heart that he was 
fully pardoned. 

Suddenly his eyes, which had never left mine, 
were fixed in an astonished stare, vague and ter- 
rible. His hand stiffened on my arm ; he raised 
himself in his chair, then drooped, and in an 
instant fell heavily on the floor. He was dead. 

The heart does not reason or calculate. That 
is its glory. In a moment I had divined every- 
thing. One minute had been enough to show me 
— all at once, and without a word of explanation — 
in a burst of irresistible light, the fatal truth which 
a thousand things daily repeated under my eyes 
had never made me suspect. Ruin was here, in 
this house, over my head. Yet I do not think 


12 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

that I should have mourned my father more sin- 
cerely or more bitterly if he had left me loaded 
with benefits. With my regret and my deep sor- 
row there was mingled a pity, strangely poign- 
ant in that it was the pity of a son for his father. 
That beseeching, humbled, hopeless look haunted 
me. Bitterly I regretted that I had not been 
able to speak a word of consolation to that heart 
before it broke ! Wildly I called to him who 
could no longer hear me, “ I forgive you, I for- 
give you.” My God, what moments were these ! 
As far as I have been able to guess, my mother, 
when she was dying, had made my father promise 
to sell the greater part of his property ; to pay off 
the whole of the enormous debt he had incurred 
by spending every year a third more than his 
income, and to live solely and strictly on what he 
had left. My father had tried to keep to this 
engagement ; he had sold the timber and part of 
the estate, but finding himself master of a con- 
siderable capital, he had applied only a small por- 
tion of it to the discharge of his debts, and had 
attempted to restore our fortunes by staking the 
remainder in the hateful chances of the Stock Ex- 
change. He had thus completed his ruin. I have 
not yet sounded the depths of the abyss in which 
we are engulfed. A week after my fathers death 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

I was taken seriously ill, and after two months of 
suffering I was only just able to leave my ancient 
home on the day that a stranger took possession 
of it. Fortunately an old friend of my mother’s, 
who lives at Paris, and who formerly acted as 
notary to our family, has come to my help. He 
has offered to undertake the work of liquidation 
which to my inexperienced judgment seemed be- 
set with unconquerable difficulties. I left the 
whole business to him, and I presume that now 
his work is completed. I went to his house di- 
rectly I arrived yesterday ; he was in the country, 
and will not return till to-morrow. 

These have been two cruel days ; uncertainty 
is the worst of all evils, because it is the only one 
that necessarily stops the springs of action and 
checks our courage. I should have been very 
much surprised if, ten years ago, any one had told 
me that the old notary, whose formal language 
and stiff politeness so much amused my father and 
me, would one day be the oracle from whom I 
should await the supreme sentence of my destiny. 

I do my best to guard against excessive hopes ; 
I have calculated approximately that, after paying 
all the debts, we should have a hundred and twenty 
to a hundred and fifty thousand francs left. A 
fortune of five millions should leave so much sal- 


14 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

vage at least. I intend to take ten thousand 
francs and seek my fortune in the new States of 
America ; the rest I shall resign to my sister. 

Enough of writing for to-night. Recalling 
such memories is a mournful occupation. Never- 
theless, I feel that it has made me calmer. Work 
is surely a sacred law, since even the lightest task 
discharged brings a certain contentment and seren- 
ity. Yet man does not love work ; he cannot fail 
to see its good effects ; he tastes them every day, 
and blesses them, and each day he comes to his 
work with the same reluctance. I think that is a 
singular and mysterious contradiction, as if in toil 
we felt at once a chastisement, and the divine and 
fatherly hand of the chastiser. 


Thursday. 

When I woke this morning a letter from old 
M. Laub^pin was brought to me. He invited me 
to dinner and apologized for taking such a liberty. 
He said nothing about my affairs. I augured 
unfavourably from this silence. 

In the meantime I fetched my sister from her 
convent, and took her about Paris. The child 
knows nothing of our ruin. In the course of the 
day she had some rather expensive fancies. She 
provided herself liberally with gloves, pink note- 

15 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

paper, bonbons for her friends, delicate scents, 
special soaps, and tiny pencils, all very necessary 
useful things, but not as necessary as a dinner. 
May she never have to realize this ! 

At six o’clock I was at M. Laubepin’s in the 
Rue Cassette. I do not know our old friend’s 
age, but to-day I found him looking just the same 
as ever — tall and thin, with a little stoop, untidy 
white hair, and piercing eyes under bushy black 
eyebrows — altogether a face at once strong and 
subtle. I recognised the unvarying costume, the 
old-fashioned black coat, the professional white 
cravat, the family diamond in the shirt-frill — in 
short, all the outward signs of a serious, method- 
ical, and conservative nature. The old gentle- 
man was waiting for me at the open door of his 
little salon. After making me a low bow, he took 
my hand lightly between two of his fingers and 
conducted me to a homely looking old lady who 
was standing by the fire-place. 

“The Marquis de Champcey d’Hauterive ! ” 
said M. Laubdpin, in his strong, rich, and em- 
phatic voice, and turning quickly to me, added 
in a humbler tone, “ Mme. Laub£pin ! ” 

We sat down. An awkward silence ensued. 
I had expected an immediate explanation of my 
position. Seeing that this was to be postponed, 
16 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

I assumed at once that it was unfavourable, an 
assumption confirmed by the discreet and com- 
passionate glances with which Mme. Laubepin 
furtively honoured me. As for M. Laubepin, he 
observed me with a remarkable attention not 
altogether kindly. My father, I remember, always 
maintained that at the bottom of his heart and 
under his respectful manner the ceremonious old 
scrivener had a little of bourgeois democratic and 
even Jacobin leaven. It seemed to me that this 
leaven was working just now, and that the old 
man found some satisfaction for his secret antip- 
athies in the spectacle of a gentleman under tor- 
ture. In spite of my real depression, I began to 
talk at once, trying to appear quite unconcerned. 

“So, M. Laubepin,” I said, “you’ve left the 
Place des Petits-Peres, the dear old Place. How 
could you bring yourself to do it ? I would never 
have believed it of you.” 

“ Mon Dieu, marquis,” replied M. Laubepin, 
“ I must admit that it is an infidelity unbecoming 
at my age ; but in giving up the practice I had to 
give up my chambers as well, for one can’t carry 
off a notary’s plate as one can a sign-board.” 

“ But you still undertake some business ? ” 
“Yes, in a friendly way, marquis. Some of 
the honourable families, the important families, 
2 1 7 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

whose confidence I have had the good fortune to 
secure in the course of forty-five years of practice, 
are still glad, especially in situations of unusual 
delicacy, to have the benefit of my experience, 
and I believe I may say they rarely regret having 
followed my advice.” 

As M. Laubepin finished this testimonial to 
his own merits, an old servant came in and 
announced that dinner was served. It was my 
privilege to conduct Mme. Laubdpin into the 
adjacent dining-room. Throughout the meal the 
conversation never rose above the most ordinary 
commonplaces. M. Laubdpin continued to look 
at me in the same penetrating and ambiguous 
manner, while Mme. Laubdpin offered me each 
dish in the mournful and compassionate tone we 
use at the bedside of an invalid. In time we left 
the table, and the old notary took me into his 
study, where coffee was served immediately. He 
made me sit down, and standing before the fire- 
place, began : 

“ Marquis,” he said, “ you have done me the 
honour of intrusting to me the administration 
of the estate of your father, the late Marquis 
de Champcey d’Hauterive. Yesterday I was 
about to write to you, when I learned of your 
arrival in Paris. This enables me to convey to 
18 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

you, vivd voce , the result of my zeal and of my 
action.” 

“ I foresee, M. Laub£pin, that the result is not 
favourable.” 

“ Marquis, it is not favourable, and you will 
need all your courage to bear it. But it is my 
rule to proceed methodically. — In the year 1820 
Mile. Louise Helene Dugald Delatouche d’Erou- 
ville was sought in marriage by Charles-Christian 
Odiot, Marquis de Champcey d’Hauterive. A tra- 
dition a century old had placed the management 
of the Dugald Delatouche affairs in my hands, and 
I was further permitted a respectful intimacy with 
the young heiress of the house. I thought it my 
duty, therefore, to oppose her infatuation by every 
argument in my power and to dissuade her from 
this deplorable alliance. I say deplorable alliance 
without reference to M. de Champcey’s fortune, 
which was nearly equal to that of Mile. Dela- 
touche, though even at this time he had mort- 
gaged it to some extent. I say so because I knew 
his character and temperament, which were in the 
main hereditary. Under the fascinating and chiv- 
alrous manner common to all of his race I saw 
clearly the heedless obstinacy, the incurable irre- 
sponsibility, the mania for pleasure, and, finally, 
the pitiless selfishness.” 


19 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“ Sir,” I interrupted sharply, “ my father’s 
memory is sacred to me, and so it must be to 
every one who speaks of him in my presence.” 

“ Sir,” replied the old man with a sudden and 
violent emotion, “ I respect that sentiment, but 
when I speak of your father I find it hard to for- 
get that he was the man who killed your mother, 
that heroic child, that saint, that angel ! ” 

I had risen in great agitation. M. Laubdpin, 
who had taken a few steps across the room, seized 
my arm. “ Forgive me, young man,” he said to 
me. “ I loved your mother and wept for her. 
You must forgive me.” Then returning to the 
fire - place, he continued in his usual solemn 
tone : 

“ I had the honour and the pain of drawing up 
your mother’s marriage contract. 

“In spite of my remonstrance, the strict settle- 
ment of her property upon herself had not been 
adopted, and it was only with much difficulty that 
I got included in the deed a protective clause by 
which about a third of your mother’s estate could 
not be sold, except with her consent duly and 
legally authenticated. A useless precaution, mar- 
quis ; I might call it the cruel precaution of an 
ill-advised friendship. This fatal clause brought 
most intolerable sufferings to the very person 


20 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

whose peace it was intended to secure. I refer to 
the disputes and quarrels and wrangles the echo 
of which must sometimes have reached your ears, 
and in which, bit by bit, your mother’s last her- 
itage — her children’s bread — was torn from her ! ” 
“ Spare me, M. Laubepin ! ” 

“ I obey. ... I will speak only of the present. 
Directly I was honoured with your confidence, 
marquis, my first duty was to advise you not to 
accept the encumbered estate unless after paying 
all liabilities.” 

“ Such a course seemed to cast a slur on my 
father’s memory, and I could not adopt it.” 

M. Laubepin darted one of his inquisitorial 
glances at me, and continued : 

‘‘You are apparently aware that by not having 
availed yourself of this perfectly legal method, 
you became responsible for all liabilities, even if 
they exceed the value of the estate itself. And 
that, it is my painful duty to tell you, is the case 
in the present instance. You will see by these 
documents that after getting exceptionally favour- 
able terms for the town-house, you and your sister 
are still indebted to your father’s creditors to the 
amount of forty-five thousand francs.” 

I was utterly stunned by this news, which far 
exceeded my worst apprehensions. For a minute 


21 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

I stared at the clock without seeing the hour it 
marked, and listened dazed to the monotonous 
sound of the pendulum. 

“ Now,” continued M. Laubepin, after a si- 
lence, “the moment has come to tell you, mar- 
quis, that your mother, in view of contingencies 
which are unfortunately realized to-day, deposited 
with me some jewels which are valued at about 
fifty thousand francs. To exempt this small sum, 
now your sole resource, from the claims of the 
creditors of the estate, we can, I believe, make use 
of the legal resource which I shall have the honour 
of submitting to you.” 

“ That will not be necessary, M. Laubepin. I 
am only too glad to be able, through this unex- 
pected means, to pay my fathers debts in full, and 
I beg you to devote it to that purpose.” 

M. Laubepin bowed slightly. 

“As you wish, marquis,” he said, “ but I must 
point out to you that when this deduction has 
been made, the joint fortune of Mile. Helene and 
yourself will consist of something like four or five 
thousand livres, which, at the present rate of in- 
terest, will give you an income of two hundred 
and twenty-five francs. That being so, may I 
venture to ask in a confidential, friendly, and re- 
spectful way whether you have thought of any 


22 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

way of providing for your own existence and for 
that of your ward and sister? And, generally, 
what your plans are ? ” 

“ I tell you frankly I have none. Whatever 
plans I may have had are quite impossible in the 
state of destitution to which I am now reduced. 
If I were alone in the world I should enlist, but I 
have my sister, and I cannot endure the thought 
of seeing the poor child subjected to toil and pri- 
vations. She is happy in the convent and young 
enough to stay there some years longer. I would 
gladly accept any employment which would enable 
me, by the strictest personal economy, to pay her 
expenses each year and provide for her dowry in 
the future.” 

M. Laubdpin looked hard at me. 

“ At your age, marquis, you must not expect,” 
he replied, “to achieve that praiseworthy object 
by entering the slow ranks of public officials and 
governmental functionaries. You require an ap- 
pointment which will assure you from the outset 
a yearly revenue of five or six thousand francs. 
And I must also tell you that this desideratum 
is not, in the present state of our social organiza- 
tion, to be obtained by simply holding out your 
hand. Happily, I am in a position to make some 
propositions to you which are likely to modify 

23 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

your present situation immediately and without 
much trouble.” 

M. Laubepin fixed his eyes on me more pene- 
tratingly than ever. 

“ In the first place, marquis,” he went on, “ I 
am the mouthpiece of a clever, rich, and influen- 
tial speculator. This personage has originated 
an idea for an important undertaking, the nature 
of which will be explained to you at a later 
period. Its success largely depends on the co- 
operation of the aristocracy of this country. He 
believes that an old and illustrious name like 
yours, marquis, appearing among the originators 
of the enterprise, would have great weight with 
the special public to whom the prospectus will 
be addressed. In return for this service, he en- 
gages to hand over to you a certain number of 
fully paid-up shares, which are now valued at ten 
thousand francs, and which will be worth two or 
three times that amount when the affair is well 
launched. In addition, he ” 

“That is enough, M. Laubepin. Such in- 
famies are unworthy of the trouble you take 
in mentioning them.” 

For a moment I saw his eyes flash and sparkle. 
The stiff folds in his face relaxed as he smiled 
faintly. 


24 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“ If you do not approve of this proposition, 
marquis,” he said unctuously, “neither do I. 
However, I thought it was my duty to submit 
it for your consideration. Here is another, which, 
perhaps, will please you more, and which is really 
more attractive. One of my oldest clients is a 
worthy merchant who has lately retired from busi- 
ness, and now passes his life with an only and 
much-loved daughter, in the quiet enjoyment of 
an aurea mediocritas of twenty-five thousand 
francs a year. Two or three days ago my client’s 
daughter, by some accident, heard of your posi- 
tion. I thought it right — indeed, to speak 
frankly, I was at some trouble — to ascertain that 
the young lady would not hesitate for a moment 
to accept the title of Marquise de Champcey. 
Her appearance is agreeable, and she has many 
excellent qualities. Her father approves. I await 
only a word from you, marquis, to tell you the 
name and residence of this interesting family.” 

“ M. Laubepin, this quite decides me ; from 
to-morrow I shall cease to use a title which is 
ridiculous for one in my position, and which, it 
seems, makes me the object of the most paltry 
intrigues. My family name is Odiot, and hence- 
forth I shall use no other. And now, though I 
recognise gratefully the keen interest in my wel- 

25 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

fare which has induced you to be the channel of 
such remarkable propositions, I must beg you to 
spare me any others of a like character.” 

“In that case, marquis, I have absolutely 
nothing more to tell you,” said M. Laubdpin, and, 
as if suddenly taken with a fit of joviality, he 
rubbed his hands together with a noise like the 
crackling of parchment. 

“You are a difficult man to place, M. Max- 
ime,” he added, smiling. “ Oh, very difficult ! 
It is remarkable that I should not have already 
noticed your striking likeness to your mother, 
particularly your eyes and your smile . . . but 
we must not digress ; and, since you are resolved 
to maintain yourself by honest work, may I ask 
what are your talents and qualifications ?” 

“ My education, monsieur, was naturally that 
of a man destined for a life of wealth and ease. 
However, I have studied law, and am nominally 
a barrister.” 

“ A barrister ! The devil you are ! But the 
name is not enough. At the bar, more than in 
any other career, everything depends on personal 
effort ; and now — let us see — do you speak well, 
marquis ? ” 

“ So badly that I believe I am incapable of 
putting two sentences together in public.” 

26 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“ H’m ! Scarcely what one could call a heaven- 
born orator. Y ou must try something else ; but 
the matter requires more careful consideration. 
I see you are tired, marquis. Here are your 
papers, which you can examine at your leisure. 
I have the honour to wish you farewell. Allow 
me to light you down. A moment — am I to 
await your further instructions before applying 
the value of those jewels to the payment of your 
creditors ? ” 

“ Oh, by no means. But I should wish you 
rather to deduct a just remuneration for your 
kind exertions.” 

We had reached the landing of the staircase ; 
M. Laubdpin, who stooped a little as he walked, 
sharply straightened himself. 

“ So far as your creditors are concerned,” he 
said, “you may count upon my obedience, mar- 
quis. As to me, I was your mothers friend, and 
I beg humbly but earnestly that her son will 
treat me as a friend.” 

I gave my hand to the old gentleman ; he 
shook it warmly and we parted. 

Back in the little room I now occupy, under 
the roof of the hdtel, which is mine no longer, I 
wished to convince myself that the full knowl- 
edge of my misery had not depressed me to a 
27 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

degree unworthy of a man. So I have sat down 
to write an account of this decisive day of my 
life, endeavouring to preserve exactly the phrase- 
ology of the old notary, a mixture of stiffness and 
courtesy, of mistrust and kind feeling, which more 
than once made me smile, though my heart was 
bleeding. 

I am face to face with poverty. Not the 
haughty, hidden, and poetic poverty that among 
forests and deserts and savannas fired my imagi- 
nation, but actual misery, need, dependence, 
humiliation, and something worse even — the pov- 
erty of the rich man who has fallen ; poverty in a 
decent coat ; the poverty that hides its ungloved 
hands from the former friends it passes in the 
street. Come, brother, courage, courage . . . ! 


Monday, April 27th. 

For five days I have been waiting in vain for 
news of M. Laubepin. I had counted consider- 
ably on the interest that he had appeared to feel 
in me. His experience, his business connections, 
and the number of people he knows, would 
enable him to be of service to me. I was ready 
to take all necessary steps under his direction, 
but, left to myself, I do not know which way to 
turn. I thought he was one of the men who 
28 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

promise little and do much. I am afraid that 
I have been mistaken. This morning I deter- 
mined to go to his house on the pretext of return- 
ing the papers he had given me, after verifying 
their dreary exactitude. I was told that he had 
gone to enjoy a taste of country life at some 
chateau in the heart of Brittany. He would be 
away two or three days longer. I was completely 
taken aback. I had not only the pain of finding 
indifference and desertion where I had looked for 
the readiness of devoted friendship, I had, in addi- 
tion, the bitter disappointment of returning, as 
I went, with an empty purse. I had, in fact, 
intended to ask M. Laubdpin to advance me 
some money from the three or four thousand 
francs due to us after full payment of our debts. 
In vain have I lived like an anchorite since I 
came to Paris. The small sum I had reserved 
for my journey is completely exhausted — so 
completely that, after making a truly pastoral 
breakfast this morning — castanece molles et pressi 
copia lactis — I was obliged to have recourse to a 
kind of trickery for my dinner to-night. I will 
make melancholy record of it here. 

The less one has had for breakfast, the more 
one wants for dinner. I had felt all the force of 
this axiom long before the sun had finished its 
29 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

course. Among the strollers whom the mild air 
had attracted to the Tuileries this afternoon to 
watch the first smiles of spring playing on the 
faces of the marble fauns, the observant might 
have noted a young man of irreproachable appear- 
ance who seemed to study the awakening of 
nature with extraordinary interest. Not satisfied 
with devouring the fresh verdure with his eyes, 
he would furtively detach the young, appetizing 
shoots and the half -opened leaves from their 
stems, and put them to his lips with the curiosity 
of a botanist. I convinced myself in this way 
that this form of nourishment, suggested by 
accounts of shipwrecks, is of very little value. 
Still, I enriched my experience with some inter- 
esting discoveries : for instance, I know now that 
the foliage of the chestnut has an exceedingly 
bitter taste ; that the rose is not unpleasant ; that 
the lime is oily and rather agreeable ; the lilac 
pungent — and I believe unwholesome. 

Meditating on these discoveries, I walked 
towards Helene’s convent. I found the parlour 
as crowded as a hive, and I was more than usu- 
ally bewildered by the tumultuous confidences of 
the young bees. Helene arrived, her hair in dis- 
order, her cheeks flushed, her eyes red and spark- 
ling. In her hand she had a piece of bread as 
30 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

long as her arm. As she embraced me in an 
absent way, I asked : 

“Well, little girl, what is the matter? You’ve 
been crying.” 

“ No, Maxime, no, it’s nothing.” 

“Well, what is it ? Now tell me. . . .” 

In a lower tone she said : 

“ Oh, I am very miserable, dear Maxime ! ” 

“ Really ? Tell me all about it while you eat 
your bread.” 

“ Oh, I shall certainly not eat my bread. I am 
too miserable to eat. You know Lucy — Lucy 
Campbell, my dearest friend. Well, we’ve quar- 
relled completely.” 

“ Oh, mon Dieu / Don’t worry, darling, you’ll 
make it up. It will be all right, dear.” 

“ Oh, Maxime, that’s impossible. It was such 
a serious quarrel. It was nothing at first, but you 
know one gets excited and loses one’s head. 
Listen, Maxime ! We were playing battledore, and 
Lucy made a mistake about the score. I was six 
hundred and eighty, and she was only six hundred 
and fifteen, and she declared she was six hundred 
and sixty-five ! You must say that was a little 
too bad. Of course I said my figure was right, 
and she said hers was. ‘ Well, mademoiselle,’ I 
said to her, ‘ let us ask these young ladies. I 
3 1 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

appeal to them.’ ‘ No, mademoiselle,’ she replied, 
‘ I am sure I am right, and you don’t play fair.’ 
‘And — and you, mademoiselle,’ I said to her — 
‘you are a liar!’ ‘Very well, mademoiselle,’ 
she said then, ‘ I despise you too much to answer 
you.’ Just at that moment Sister Sainte-Fdlix 
came up, which was a good thing, for I am 
sure I should have hit her. Now, you know 
what happened. Can we possibly make it up ? 
No, it is impossible; it would be cowardly. 
But I can’t tell you how I suffer. I don’t be- 
lieve there’s any one in the world so miserable 
as I am.” 

“ Yes, dear, it’s difficult to imagine anything 
more distressing ; but it seems to me that you 
partly brought it on yourself, for it was you who 
used the most offensive word. Tell me, is Lucy 
in the parlour ? ” 

“ Yes, there she is, in the corner.” 

With a dignified and careful movement of her 
head she indicated a very fair little girl. Her 
cheeks, too, were flushed, and her eyes were red. 
Apparently she was giving an account of the 
drama, which Sister Sainte-Felix had so fortu- 
nately interrupted, to an old lady who was listen- 
ing attentively. 

Mile. Lucy, while she talked with an earnest- 
32 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

ness appropriate to the subject, kept looking 
furtively at Helene and me. 

“ Dear child,” I said to Helene, 44 do you trust 
me?” 

“ Yes, Maxime, I trust you very much.” 

“ In that case I will tell you what to do. Go 
very gently behind Mile. Lucy’s chair ; take her 
head in your hands — like this, when she is not 
looking — and kiss her on both cheeks — like this, 
with all your might — and then you will see what 
she will do in her turn.” 

For a second or two Hdlene seemed to hesi- 
tate ; then she set off at a great rate, fell like a 
thunder-clap on Mile. Campbell, but nevertheless 
gave her the sweetest of surprises. The two 
young sufferers, at last eternally united, mingled 
their tears in a touching group, while the respect- 
able old Mrs. Campbell blew her nose with a noise 
as of a bagpipe. 

Helene came back to me radiant. 

44 Well, dear,” I said, 44 I hope you’re going to 
eat your bread now.” 

“ Oh, no! I can’t, Maxime. I am too much 
excited, and — besides, I must tell you — to-day a 
new pupil came and gave us quite a feast of 
meringues, Eclairs, and chocolate-creams, and I am 
not a bit hungry. And I am in a great difficulty 
33 


3 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

about it, because when we re not hungry we have 
to put our bread back in the basket, and in my 
trouble I forgot, and I shall be punished. But, 
Maxime, as we’re crossing the court when you go, 
I shall try to drop it down the cellar without any 
one seeing.” 

“ What, little sister ! ” I said, colouring a little, 
“you are going to waste that large piece of 
bread ? ” 

“ It isn’t good of me I know, because, perhaps, 
there are poor people who would be very glad of 
it, aren’t there, Maxime ? ” 

“ There certainly are, dear.” 

“ But what do you want me to do ? The poor 
people don’t come in here.” 

“ Look here, Helene, give me the bread, and 
I’ll give it in your name to the first poor man I 
meet. Will you?” 

“ Oh, yes ! ” 

The bell rang for school. I broke the bread in 
two and hid the pieces shamefacedly in my great- 
coat pockets. 

“Dear Maxime,” said my sister, “you’ll come 
again soon, won’t you ? Then you’ll tell me 
whether you met a poor man and gave him my 
bread, and whether he liked it ? Good-bye, 
Maxime.” 


34 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“Yes, Helene, I met a poor man and gave him 
your bread, which he seized and carried off to his 
solitary garret, and he liked it. But this poor 
man had not courage, for he wept as he ate the 
food that had come from your dear little hands. 
I will tell you all this, Helene, because it is good 
for you to know that there are sufferings more 
serious than your childish woes. I will tell you 
everything, except the name of the poor man.” 


Tuesday, April 28th. 

At nine o’clock this morning I called at M. 
Laubepin’s in the vague hope that he might have 
returned earlier than he intended, but he is not 
expected until to-morrow. I thought at once of 
seeing Mme. Laubepin and explaining the awk- 
ward position I was placed in through her hus- 
band’s absence. While I hesitated in a conflict of 
shame and necessity, the old servant, alarmed, per- 
haps, by my hungry gaze, settled the question by 
suddenly shutting the door. I made up my mind 
hereupon to fast until the next day. After all, I 
said to myself, a day’s abstinence does not kill 
one. If this showed an excessive pride, at all 
events I was the only one to suffer, and conse- 
quently it concerned no one but myself. I ac- 
cordingly made my way to the Sorbonne, where I 
35 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

attended several lectures, trying to fill up my cor- 
poreal vacuum by spiritual sustenance. But when 
this resource came to an end I found it had been 
quite inadequate. And I had an attack of ner- 
vous irritation which I tried to calm by walking. 
It was a cold, misty day. As I crossed the Pont 
des Saints-Peres I stopped for a minute in spite 
of myself. Leaning on the parapet, I watched 
the troubled water rushing under the arches. I 
know not what unholy thoughts shot through my 
worn and weakened brain. I saw in the gloomiest 
colours a future of ceaseless struggle, of depend- 
ence, and of humiliation, which I was approaching 
by the dark gate of hunger ; I felt a profound and 
utter disgust of life ; it seemed impossible to me 
under such conditions. At the same time a flame 
of fierce and brutal anger leaped up in me. 
Dazed and reeling, I hung over the void, and saw 
all the river glittering with sparks of fire. 

I will not say, as is usual, God would not have 
it so. I hate these cant phrases, and I dare to say 
/would not. God has made us free, and if ever 
before I had doubted it, this supreme moment — 
when soul and body, courage and cowardice, good 
and evil, held mortal combat within me — would 
have swept my doubts away forever. 

Master of myself again, those terrible waves 
36 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

only suggested an innocent, and rather absurd 
longing to quench the thirst that tortured me. I 
soon remembered that I should find much purer 
water in my room at home. I went quickly to- 
wards the hdtel, imagining that the most delicious 
pleasures awaited me there. With pathetic child- 
ishness I delighted in this glorious device, and 
wondered I had not thought of it sooner. On 
the boulevard I suddenly came face to face with 
Gaston de Vaux, whom I had not seen for two 
years. After a moment’s hesitation he stopped, 
grasped my hand cordially, said a word or two 
about my travels, and left me hurriedly. But he 
turned back. 

“ My friend,” he said to me, “you must allow 
me to let you share a piece of good luck I’ve just 
had. I have put my hand on a treasure ; I have 
got some cigars which cost me two francs each, 
but really they are beyond price. Here’s one ; 
you must tell me how you like it. Au revoir, 
old man ! ” 

Wearily I mounted the six flights to my room, 
and trembling with emotion, I seized my friendly 
water-bottle and swallowed the contents in small 
mouthfuls. Afterward I lighted my friend’s 
cigar, and smiled encouragement at myself in the 
glass. Feeling that movement and the distraction 
3 7 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

of the streets were good for me, I went out again 
directly. Opening my door, I was surprised and 
annoyed to see the wife of the concierge of the 
hdtel standing in the narrow corridor. My sud- 
den appearance seemed to disconcert her. This 
woman had formerly been in my mother’s service, 
and had become a favourite with her, and when 
she married, my mother had given her the profit- 
able post she still held. For some days I had an 
idea that she was watching me, and now, having 
nearly caught her in the act, I asked her roughly 
what she wanted. 

“ Oh, nothing, M. Maxime, nothing,” she re- 
plied, much confused. “ I was seeing to the gas.” 

I shrugged my shoulders and went away. 

Night was falling, so I could walk about in the 
more frequented places without being fearful of 
awkward recognitions. I was obliged to throw 
away my cigar — it made me feel sick. My prom- 
enade lasted two or three hours, and painful hours 
they were. There is something peculiarly poign- 
ant in feeling oneself attacked, in the midst of 
the brilliance and plenty of civilization, by the 
scourge of savage life — hunger. It brings you 
near to madness. It’s a tiger springing at your 
throat in the middle of the boulevards. 

I made some original reflections. Hunger, 
38 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

after all, is not an empty word. There actually 
is a complaint of that name, and there are human 
beings who endure nearly every day what through 
a mere accident I am suffering for once in my life. 
And how many have their misery embittered by 
troubles which I am spared ! I know that the 
one being in the world whom I love is sheltered 
from such sufferings as mine. But how many 
cannot suffer alone ; how many must hear the 
heart-rending cry of nature repeated on beloved 
lips that ask for food ; how many for whom pale 
women and unsmiling children are waiting in bare 
cold rooms ! Poor creatures ! Blessed be holy 
charity ! 

After these thoughts I dared not complain ; 
they gave me courage to bear my trial to the end. 
As a matter of fact I could have shortened it. 
There are two or three restaurants where I am 
known, and where, when I was rich, I had often 
gone in without hesitation, though I had forgotten 
to bring my purse. I might have made some 
such pretext. Nor would it have been difficult 
for me to borrow a franc or two in Paris. But I 
recoiled from such expedients. They suggested 
poverty too plainly, and they came too near to 
trickery. That descent is swift and slippery for 
the poor, and I believe I would rather lose honesty 
39 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

itself than the delicacy which gives distinction to 
the commonplace virtue. I have seen too often 
with what facility this exquisite sentiment of 
honesty loses its bloom, even in the finest natures, 
not merely under the breath of misery, but at the 
slightest contact with privation. So I shall keep 
strict watch over myself. I shall be on my guard 
henceforth against even the most innocent com- 
promise with conscience. When bad times come, 
do not accustom your soul to suppleness ; it is 
only too prone to yield. 

Fatigue and cold drove me back about nine 
o’clock. The door of the hdtel was open. ' Tread- 
ing as lightly as a ghost, I had reached the stair- 
case when the sound of a lively conversation came 
from the concierge’s room. They were talking 
about me, for at this very moment the tyrant of 
the house pronounced my name with unmistak- 
able contempt. 

“ Be good enough, Mme. Vauberger,” said 
the concierge, “ not to trouble me with your 
Maxime. Did I ruin your Maxime ? Then what 
are you talking to me about ? If he kills himself, 
they’ll bury him, won’t they ? ” 

“I tell you, Vauberger,” his wife answered, 
“it would have made your heart bleed to see him 
drain his water-bottle. And if I believed you 
40 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

meant what you say in that offhand manner — just 
like an actor — ‘ If he kills himself, they’ll bury 
him ! ’ I would But I know you don’t, be- 

cause you’re a good sort, although you don’t like 
being upset. Fancy being without fire or bread ! 
And that after being fed on dainties all your life, 
and wrapped up in furs like a little pet cat. It’s a 
shame and a disgrace. A nice sort of government 
yours is to allow such things ! ” 

“ But it has nothing to do with the govern- 
ment,” said M. Vauberger, reasonably enough. 
“ And I’m sure you’re wrong ; it’s not so bad as 
all that He can’t be wanting bread ; it’s impos- 
sible.” 

“All right, Vauberger. I’ve more to tell you. 
I’ve followed him. I’ve watched him, and made 
Edouard watch him, too. Yes, I have. I’m cer- 
tain he had no dinner yesterday, and no breakfast 
to-day ; and as I’ve searched his pockets and all 
the drawers, and not found so much as a red cent, 
you may be sure he hasn’t had any dinner to-day, 
for he’s much too high and mighty to go and 
beg one.” 

“ Oh, is he ? So much the worse for him. 
Poor people shouldn’t be proud,” said the 
worthy concierge, true to the sentiments of his 
calling. 


4i 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

I had had enough of this dialogue, and put an 
end to it abruptly by opening the door and asking 
M. Vauberger for a light. I could not have as- 
tounded him more if I had asked for his head. 
Though I particularly wished not to give way 
before these people, I could not help stumbling 
once or twice as I went up the stairs. My head 
was swimming. Usually my room was as cold as 
ice. Imagine my surprise at finding a bright, 
cheerful fire, which sent a pleasant warmth through 
the room. I wasn’t stoic enough to put it out, 
and I blessed the kind hearts there are in the 
world. I stretched myself out in an old arm-chair 
of Utrecht velvet, which, like myself, had been 
brought by reverses from the first floor to the gar- 
ret. I tried to sleep. For half an hour I had been 
dreaming in a kind of torpor of sumptuous ban- 
quets and merry junketings, when the noise of the 
door opening made me jump up with a start. I 
thought I was dreaming still when Mme. Vau- 
berger came in, carrying a big tray with two or 
three savoury dishes steaming on it. Before I 
could shake off my lethargy she had put the tray 
down and had begun to lay the cloth. At last I 
started up hastily. 

“ Well,” I said, “what does this mean ? What 
are you doing ? ” 


42 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

Mme. Vauberger pretended to be greatly sur- 
prised. 

“ I thought you ordered dinner, sir?” 

“Oh, no.” 

“ Edouard told me that ” 

“ Edouard made a mistake ; it’s for one of the 
other tenants ; you had better see.” 

“ But there’s no other tenant on this floor, 
sir ... I can’t make out . . .” 

“ Well, it was not for me. What does all 
this mean ? Oh, you annoy me ! Take it 
away.” 

The poor woman began to fold the cloth, 
looking at me reproachfully, like a favourite dog 
who has been beaten. 

“ I suppose you’ve had dinner already, sir,” 
she said, timidly. 

“No doubt.” 

“That is a pity, because this dinner is quite 
ready, and now it will be wasted, and the boy’ll 
get a scolding from his father. If you hadn’t had 
your dinner already, sir, you would have very 
much obliged me if ” 

I stamped my foot violently. 

“ Leave the room, I tell you,” I said, and as 
she was going out I went up to her. “ My good 
Louison,” I said, “ I understand, and I thank 
43 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

you ; but I am not very well to-night, and I have 
no appetite.” 

“Ah, M. Maxime,” she exclaimed, in tears, 
“you don’t know how you hurt my feelings. 
Well, you can pay me for the dinner; you shall 
if you like ; you can give me the money as soon 
as you get some . . . but if you gave me a hun- 
dred thousand francs, it wouldn’t make me so 
happy as seeing you eat my poor dinner. You 
would do me a great kindness, M. Maxime. You, 
who are so clever, you ought to understand how 
I feel. Oh, I know you will, M. Maxime !” 

“Well, my dear Louison, what am I to do ? 
I can’t give you a hundred thousand francs . . . 
but ... I am going to eat your dinner. All by 
myself, too, if you don’t mind.” 

“ Certainly, sir. Oh, thank you, sir ; I thank 
you very much indeed. You have a kind heart, 
sir.” 

“And a good appetite, Louison. Give me 
your hand — oh, not to put money in, you may be 
sure. There! Au revoir, Louison.” 

The good woman went out sobbing. 

I did justice to Louison’s dinner, and had just 
finished writing these lines when a grave and 
heavy footstep sounded on the stairs, and at the 
same time I thought I heard the voice of my 
44 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

humble providence whispering confidences in hur- 
ried, nervous tones. A moment or two later 
there was a knock. Louison slipped away in 
the darkness, and the solemn outline of the old 
notary appeared in the doorway. 

M. Laubepin cast a keen glance at the tray 
where I had left the fragments of my dinner. 
Then coming towards me and opening his arms, 
at once confused and reproachful, he said : 

“ In Heaven’s name, marquis, why did you 
not ” 

He broke off, strode quickly about the room, 
and then coming to a sudden halt, exclaimed : 

“Young man, you had no right to do this; 
you have given pain to a friend, and you have 
made an old man blush.” 

He was much moved. I looked at him, a 
little moved myself and not knowing what to say, 
when he suddenly clasped me in his arms and 
murmured in my ear, “ My poor child ... ! ” 

For a moment we said nothing. When we 
had sat down, M. Laubdpin continued. 

“Maxime,” he said, “are you in the same 
mind as when I left you ? Have you the cour- 
age to accept the humblest work, the least im- 
portant occupation, provided it is honourable, 
and that it gives you a livelihood and preserves 
45 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

your sister from the sufferings and dangers of 
poverty ? ” 

“ Most certainly I am ; it’s my duty, and I am 
ready to do it.” 

“Very well, my friend. Now listen to me. 
I have just returned from Brittany. In that 
ancient province there is a family called Laroque, 
who have for many years past honoured me with 
their entire confidence. This family is now rep- 
resented by an old man and two ladies whom age 
or disposition render incapable of business. The 
Laroques have a substantial income derived from 
their large estates in land, which have latterly 
been managed by an agent whom I took the lib- 
erty to regard as a rogue. The day following our 
last interview, Maxime, I received intelligence of 
the death of this man. I immediately set out for 
the Chateau Laroque and asked for the appoint- 
ment for you. I laid stress on your having been 
called to the bar, and dwelt particularly on your 
moral qualities. Respecting your wishes, I did 
not allude to your birth ; you are not, and will 
not, be known in that house under any name but 
that of Maxime Odiot. A pavilion at some dis- 
tance from the house will be allotted to you, and 
you will be able to have your meals there when, 
for any reason, you do not care to join the family 
46 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

at table. Your salary will be six thousand francs 
a year. How will that suit you ? ” 

“ It will suit me perfectly. You must let me 
acknowledge at once how much I feel the consid- 
eration and delicacy of your friendship. But to 
tell you the truth, I am afraid I am rather a 
strange kind of business man — rather a novice, 
you know.” 

“ You need have no anxiety on that score, my 
friend. I anticipated your scruples, and concealed 
nothing from the parties concerned. ‘ Madame,’ 
I said to my excellent friend, Mme. Laroque, 
‘you require an agent and an administrator of 
your income. I offer you one. He is far from 
possessing the talents of his predecessor ; he is by 
no means versed in the mysteries of leases and 
farm-freeholds ; he does not know the alphabet 
of the affairs you are so good as to intrust to him ; 
he has had no experience, no practice, and no 
opportunity of learning ; but he has something 
which his predecessor lacked, which sixty years 
of experience had not given him, and which he 
would not have acquired in ten thousand years — 
and that is honesty, madame. I have seen him 
under fire, and I will answer for him. Engage 
him ; he will be indebted to you, and so shall I.’ 
Young man, Mme. Laroque laughed very much 
47 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

it 

at my way of recommending people, but in the 
end it turned out to be a good way, for it has suc- 
ceeded.” 

The worthy old gentleman then offered to 
impart to me some elementary general notions 
on the kind of administration I was about to 
undertake, and to these he added, in connection 
with the interests of the Laroque family, the 
results of some inquiries which he had made 
and put into shape for me. 

“And when am I to go, my dear sir?” 

“To say the truth, my boy” (he had entirely 
dropped the “ marquis ”), “ the sooner the better, 
for those good people could not make out a re- 
ceipt unaided. My excellent friend, Mme. La- 
roque, more especially, though an admirable woman 
in many respects, is beyond conception careless, 
indiscreet, and childish in business matters. She 
is a Creole.” 

“ Ah ! she is a Creole,” I repeated with some 
vivacity. 

“Yes, young man, an old Creole lady,” M. 
Laubepin said dryly. “Her husband was a Bret- 
on ; but these details will come in good time. . . . 
Good-bye till to-morrow, Maxime, and be of good 
cheer. Ah ! I had forgotten. On Thursday morn- 
ing, before my departure, I did something which 
48 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

will be of service to you. Among your creditors 
there are some rogues, whose relations with your 
father were obviously usurious. Armed with the 
thunders of the law, I reduced their claims on 
my own responsibility, and made them give me 
receipts in full. So now your capital amounts 
to twenty thousand francs. Add to this reserve 
what you are able to save each year from your 
salary, and in ten years’ time we shall have a good 
dowry for Helene. Well, well, come and lunch 
with Maitre Laubepin to-morrow, and we will 
settle all the rest. Good-bye, Maxime ; good- 
night, my dear child ! ” 

“ God bless you, sir ! ” 

Chateau de Laroque (d’Arz), May ist . 

I left Paris yesterday. My last interview with 
M. Laubdpin was painful. I feel the affection 
of a son for the old man. Then I had to bid 
Helene farewell. It was necessary to tell her 
something of the truth, to make her understand 
why I was compelled to accept an appointment. 
I talked vaguely of temporary business difficul- 
ties. The poor child understood, I think, more 
than I had said ; her large, wondering eyes filled 
with tears as she fell upon my neck. 

At last I got away. I went by train to 
4 49 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

Rennes, where I stayed the night. This morning 
I took the diligence, which put me down, four 
or five hours ago, at a little Morbihan town not 
far from the chateau of Laroque. We had trav- 
elled ten leagues or more from Rennes, and still 
I had seen nothing to justify the reputed pic- 
turesqueness of our ancient Armorica. A flat, 
green country without variety ; eternal apple-trees 
in eternal fields ; ditches and wooded slopes shut- 
ting off the view on both sides of the road ; 
here and there a nook full of rural charm, and 
a few blouses and glazed hats relieving the very 
ordinary scene. All this strongly inclined me to 
think that poetic Brittany was merely a preten- 
tious and somewhat pallid sister of Lower Nor- 
mandy. Tired of disillusions and apple-trees, I 
had for more than an hour ceased to take any 
notice of the country. I was dozing heavily, 
when I felt suddenly that the lumbering vehicle 
was lurching forward heavily. At the same 
time the pace of the horses slackened, and a 
clanking noise, together with a peculiar vibra- 
tion, proclaimed that the worst of drivers had 
applied the worst of brakes to the worst of dili- 
gences. An old lady clutched my arm with the 
ready sympathy excited by a sense of common 
danger. I put my head out of the window ; we 
50 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

were descending, between two lofty slopes, an 
extremely steep hill, evidently the work of an 
engineer too much enamoured of the straight 
line. 

Half-sliding, half-rolling, we soon reached the 
bottom of a narrow valley of gloomy aspect. A 
feeble brook flowed silently and slowly among 
thick reeds, and over its crumbling banks hung a 
few moss-grown tree-trunks. The road crossed 
the stream by a bridge of a single arch, and, climb- 
ing the farther hill, cut a white track across a wide, 
barren, and naked lande whose crest stood out 
sharply against the horizon in front of us. Near 
the bridge and close to the road was a ruined 
hovel. Its air of desolation struck to the heart. 
A young, robust man was splitting wood by the 
door ; his long, fair hair was fastened at the back 
by a black ribbon. He raised his head, and I was 
surprised at the strange character of his features 
and at the calm gaze of his blue eyes. He greeted 
me in an unknown tongue and with a quiet, soft, 
and timid accent. A woman was spinning at the 
cottage window ; the style of her hair and dress 
reproduced with theatrical fidelity the images of 
those slim chatelaines of stone we see on tombs. 
These people did not look like peasants ; they had, 
in the highest degree, that easy, gracious, and se- 
5i 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

rious air we call distinction. And they had, too, 
the sad and dreamy expression often seen among 
people whose nationality has been destroyed. 

I had got down to walk up the hill. The 
lande, which was not separated from the road, ex- 
tended all round me as far and farther than I 
could see ; stunted furze clung to the black 
earth on every side ; here and there were ravines, 
clefts, deserted quarries, and low rocks, but no 
trees. 

Only when I had reached the high ground I 
saw the distant sombre line of the heath broken 
by a more distant strip of the horizon. A little 
serrated, blue as the sea and steeped in sunlight, it 
seemed to open in the midst of this desolation the 
sudden vision of some radiant fairy region. At 
last I saw Brittany ! 

I had to engage a carriage to take me the two 
leagues that separated me from the end of my 
journey. During the drive, which was not by any 
means a rapid one, I vaguely remember seeing 
woods, glades, lakes, and oases of fresh verdure in 
the valleys; but as we approached the Chateau 
Laroque I was besieged by a thousand appre- 
hensions which left no room for tourist’s reflec- 
tions. In a few minutes I was to enter a strange 
family on the footing of a sort of servant in dis- 
52 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

guise, and in a position which would barely secure 
me the consideration and respect of the lackeys 
themselves. This was something very new to me. 
The moment M. Laubdpin proposed this post of 
bailiff, all my instincts, all my habits, had risen in 
violent protest against the peculiar character of 
dependence attached to such duties. Neverthe- 
less, I had thought it impossible to refuse without 
appearing to slight my old friend’s zealous efforts 
on my behalf. Moreover, in a less dependent 
position, I could not have hoped to obtain for 
many years the advantages which I should have 
here from the outset, and which would enable me 
to work for my sister’s future without losing time. 
I had therefore overcome my repugnance, but it 
had been very strong, and now revived more 
strongly than ever in face of the imminent reality. 
I had need to study once more the articles on 
duty and sacrifice in the moral code that every 
man carries in his conscience. At the same time 
I told myself that there is no situation, however 
humble, where personal dignity cannot maintain 
itself — and none, in fact, that it cannot ennoble. 
Then I sketched out a plan of conduct towards the 
Laroque family, and promised myself to show a 
conscientious zeal for their interests, and, to them- 
selves, a just deference equally removed from ser- 
53 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

vility and from stiffness. But I could not conceal 
from myself that the last part of my task, ob- 
viously the most delicate, would be either greatly- 
simplified or complicated by the special characters 
and dispositions of the people with whom I was 
to come into contact. Now, M. Laubepin, while 
recognising that my anxiety on these personal 
questions was quite legitimate, had been stub- 
bornly sparing of information and details on the 
subject. However, just as I was starting, he had 
handed me a private memorandum counselling me 
at the same time to throw it in the fire as soon as 
I had profited by its contents. This memorandum 
I took from my portfolio and proceeded to study 
its sibylline utterances, which I here reproduce 
exactly. 


“CHATEAU DE LAROQUE (D’ARZ) 

“List of Persons living at the Aforesaid Chateau 
“ i st. M. Laroque (Louis- Auguste), octogena- 
rian, present head of the family, main source of 
its wealth : an old sailor, famous under the first 
empire as a sort of authorized pirate ; appears to 
have enriched himself by lawful enterprises of 
various kinds on the sea ; has lived in the colonies 
for a long while. Born in Brittany, he returned 
and settled there about thirty years since, accom- 
54 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

panied by the late Pierre-Antoine Laroque, his 
only son, husband of 

“2d. Mme. Laroque (Josephine-Clara), daugh- 
ter-in-law of the above-mentioned ; by origin a 
Creole ; aged forty years ; indolent disposition ; 
romantic temperament ; certain whimsies : a beau- 
tiful nature. 

“ 3d. Mile. Laroque (Marguerite-Louise), the 
grand-daughter, daughter, and presumptive heiress 
of the preceding, aged twenty years ; Creole and 
Bretonne ; cherishes certain chimaeras ; a beautiful 
nature. 

“4th. Mme. Aubry, widow of one Aubry, a 
stock-broker, who died in Belgium ; a second 
cousin, lives with the family. 

“ 5th. Mile. Helouin (Caroline-Gabrielle), aged 
twenty-six ; formerly governess, now companion ; 
cultivated intellect ; character doubtful. 

“ Burn this.” 

In spite of its reticence, this document was of 
some service to me. Relieved from the dread of 
the unknown, I felt that my apprehensions had 
partly subsided. And if, as M. Laubepin asserted, 
there were two fine characters in the Chateau La- 
roque, it was a higher proportion than one could 
have expected to find among five inhabitants. 

55 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

After a drive of two hours the coachman stopped 
at a gate flanked by two lodges. 

I left my heavy luggage there, and went to- 
wards the chateau, carrying a valise in one hand, 
while I used the other to cut off the heads of the 
marguerites with my cane. After walking a little 
distance between rows of large chestnuts I came 
to a spacious circular garden, emerging into a park 
a little farther on. Right and left I saw deep 
vistas opening out between groves already verdant, 
water flowing under trees, and little white boats 
laid up in rustic boat-houses. 

Facing me was the chateau, an imposing build- 
ing in the elegant half-Italian style of the early 
years of Louis XIII. At the foot of the double 
perron, and under the lofty windows of the fagade 
stretched a long terrace, which formed a kind of 
private garden, approached by several broad, low 
steps. The gay and sumptuous aspect of this 
place caused me a real disappointment, which was 
not lessened when, as I drew nearer to the terrace, 
I heard the noise of young and laughing voices 
rising above the distant tinkle of a piano. Plainly 
I had come to an abode of pleasure very different 
from the old and gloomy donjon of my imagin- 
ings. However, the time for reflection had passed. 
I went quickly up the steps, and suddenly found 
5b 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

myself in the midst of a scene, which in any other 
circumstances I should have thought extremely 
pretty. 

On one of the lawns of the flower-garden half 
a dozen young girls, linked in couples and laugh- 
ing at themselves, whirled in a flood of sunshine, 
while a piano, touched by a skilful hand, sent 
the rhythms of a riotous waltz through an open 
window. 

But I had scarcely had time to note the ani- 
mated faces of the dancers, their loosened hair, 
and large hats flapping on their shoulders. My 
sudden appearance had been received with a cry 
of general alarm, succeeded by profound silence. 
The dancing ceased, and all the band awaited the 
advance of the stranger in array of battle. But 
the stranger had come to a halt with signs of evi- 
dent embarrassment. Though for some time past 
I had scarcely troubled my head about my social 
claims, I must confess that at this moment I 
should gladly have got rid of my hand-bag. But 
I had to make the best of the situation. As I 
advanced, hat in hand, towards the double stair- 
case leading to the vestibule of the chateau the 
piano ceased abruptly. A large Newfoundland 
first presented himself at the window, putting his 
lion-like head on the cross-bar between his two 


57 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

hairy paws ; immediately after there appeared a 
tall young girl, whose somewhat sunburnt face 
and serious expression were framed in a mass of 
black and lustrous hair. Her eyes, which I thought 
extraordinarily large, examined the scene outside 
with nonchalant curiosity. 

“Well, what is the matter?” she asked in a 
quiet tone. 

I made her a low bow, and once more cursing 
the bag which evidently amused the young ladies, 
I crossed the perron hastily, and entered the house. 

In the hall a gray-haired servant, dressed in 
black, took my name. A few minutes later I 
was shown into a large drawing-room hung with 
yellow silk. There I at once recognised the 
young lady I had just seen at the window. She 
was beyond question remarkably beautiful. By 
the fire-place, where a regular furnace was blazing, 
a lady of middle age and of marked Creole type 
of feature, sat buried in a large arm-chair among 
a mass of eider-down pillows and cushions of all 
sizes. Within her reach stood an antique tripod 
surmounted by a brasero , to which she frequently 
held her pale and delicate hands. Near Mme. 
Laroque sat a lady knitting, whom I recognised 
at once by her morose and disagreeable expression 
as the second cousin, the widow of the stock- 
58 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

broker who died in Belgium. Mme. Laroque 
looked at me as if she were more than surprised, 
as if she were astounded. She asked my name 
again. 

“I beg your pardon . . . Monsieur . . .?” 

“ Odiot, madame.” 

“ Maxime Odiot — the manager, the steward — 
that M. Laubepin . . . ? ” 

“Yes, madame.” 

“You are quite sure ?” 

I could not help smiling. 

“Yes, madame, quite sure.” 

She glanced quickly at the widow of the 
stock-broker, and then at the grave young girl, 
as if to say, “ Is it possible ?” Then she moved 
slightly among her cushions, and continued : 

“ Pray sit down, M. Odiot,” she said. “ I 
must thank you very much for placing your 
talents at our service. We need your help badly, 
I assure you, for — it cannot be denied — we have 
the misfortune to be very wealthy.” 

Seeing the second cousin raise her shoulders 
at this, Mme. Laroque went on : “Yes, my dear 
Mme. Aubry, I do say so, and I hold to it. God 
sent me riches to try me. Most certainly I was 
born for poverty and privation, for devotion and 
sacrifice ; but I have always been crossed. For 
59 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

instance, I should have loved to have had an in- 
valid husband. M. Laroque was an exceptionally 
healthy man. That is how my destiny has been 
and will be marred from beginning to end — — ” 

“Oh, don’t talk like that !” said Mme. Aubry 
dryly. “ Poverty would agree with you — a person 
who can’t deny herself a single indulgence or 
refinement!” 

“ One moment, my dear madame,” returned 
Mme. Laroque, “ I do not believe in useless sacri- 
fices. If I subjected myself to the worst priva- 
tions, who would be the better for it ? Would 
you be any happier if I shivered with cold from 
morning till night ? ” 

By an expressive gesture Mme. Aubry signi- 
fied that she would not be any happier, but that 
she considered Mme. Laroque’s language ex- 
tremely affected and ridiculous. 

“After all,” continued Mme. Laroque, “good 
fortune or ill fortune, what does it matter ? As I 
said, M. Odiot, we are very rich, and little as I 
may value our wealth, it is my duty to preserve 
it for my daughter, though the poor child cares no 
more for it than I. Do you, Marguerite ?” 

A slight smile broke the curve of Mile. Mar- 
guerite’s disdainful lips at this question, and the 
low arch of her eyebrows contracted momentarily ; 

60 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

then the grave, haughty face subsided into repose 
again. 

“M. Odiot,” resumed Mme. Laroque, “you 
shall be shown the place, which, at M. Laub£pin’s 
explicit request, has been reserved for you ; but 
before this I should like you to be introduced to 
my father-in-law, who will be very much pleased 
to see you. My dear cousin, will you ring ? M. 
Odiot, I hope that you will give us the pleasure of 
your company at dinner to-day. Good-bye — for 
the present.” 

I was intrusted to the care of a servant, who 
asked me to wait in a room next to the one I had 
just left, until he had ascertained M. Laroque’s 
wishes. He had not closed the door of the salon , 
so it was impossible for me not to hear these 
words spoken by Mme. Laroque with the good- 
natured irony habitual to her : 

“There! Can you understand Laub^pin ? He 
talked of a man of a certain age ; very simple, very 
steady, and he sends me a gentleman like that ! ” 

Mile. Marguerite said something, but so quietly 
that I could not hear it, much to my regret, I con- 
fess. Her mother replied immediately : 

“ That may be so, my dear, but it is none the 
less absolutely ridiculous of Laubepin. Do you 
expect that a man of that kind will go running 
61 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

about ploughed fields in sabots ? I will wager that 
man has never worn sabots ; he doesn’t know what 
they are. Well, it may be a prejudice of mine, 
dear, but sabots seem to me essential to a good 
bailiff. Marguerite, it has just occurred to me, 
you might take him to your grandfather.” 

Mile. Marguerite entered the room where I 
was almost directly. She seemed vexed to find 
me there. 

“ Pardon me, mademoiselle,” I said, “ but the 
servant asked me to wait here.” 

“ Will you be so good as to follow me, sir ? ” 

I followed her. She made me climb a stair- 
case, cross many corridors, and at last brought me 
to a kind of gallery, where she left me. I 
amused myself by examining the pictures. They 
were, for the most part, very ordinary sea pieces 
painted to glorify the old privateersmen of the 
Empire. There were several rather murky sea- 
fights, in which it was very evident that the little 
brig Aimable, Captain Laroque, twenty-six guns, 
gave John Bull a great deal of trouble. Then 
came several full-length portraits of Captain 
Laroque, which naturally attracted my particular 
attention. With certain slight variations they all 
represented a man of gigantic height, wearing 
a sort of republican uniform with large facings, as 
62 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

luxuriant of locks as Kldber, and looking straight 
before him with an energetic, glowing, and som- 
bre expression. Altogether not exactly a pleasant 
sort of man. While I studied this mighty figure, 
which perfectly realized the general idea of a pri- 
vateersman and even of a pirate, Mile. Marguerite 
asked me to come into the room. I found myself 
face to face with a shrivelled and decrepit old 
man, whose eyes showed scarcely a spark of life, 
and who, as he welcomed me, touched with trem- 
bling hand the cap of black silk which covered a 
skull that shone like ivory. 

“ Grandfather,” said Mile. Marguerite, raising 
her voice, “this is M. Odiot.” 

The poor old privateersman raised himself a 
little, as he looked at me with a dull and wavering 
expression. 

I sat down at a sign from Mile. Marguerite, 
who repeated : 

“ M. Odiot, the new bailiff, grandfather.” 

“ Ah — good-day, sir,” murmured the old man. 

An interval of most painful silence followed. 
Captain Laroque, his body bent in two and his 
head hanging down, fixed a bewildered look on 
me. At last, having apparently found a highly 
interesting subject of conversation, he said in a 
dull, deep voice : 


63 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“ M. de Beauchene is dead ! ” 

I was not provided with a reply to this un- 
expected communication. I had not the slightest 
idea who M. de Beauchene might be ; Mile. Mar- 
guerite did not take the trouble to tell me ; so 
I limited the expression of my regret at this 
unhappy event to a slight exclamation of con- 
dolence. But the old captain apparently thought 
this was not adequate, for the next moment he 
repeated, in the same mournful voice : 

“ M. de Beauchene is dead ! ” 

This persistence increased my embarrassment. 
I saw Mile. Marguerite impatiently tapping her 
foot on the floor. Despair seized me, and, catch- 
ing at the first phrase that came into my head, 
I said : 

“ Yes ; and what did he die of ?” 

I had scarcely asked the question, when an 
angry look from Mile. Marguerite told me that 
I was suspected of irreverent mockery. Though 
I was not conscious of anything worse than a 
foolish gaucherie, I did all I could to give the 
conversation a more pleasant character. I spoke 
of the pictures in the gallery, of the great emo- 
tions they must recall, of the respectful interest 
I felt in contemplating the hero of these glorious 
scenes. I even went into detail, and instanced 
64 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

with no certain warmth of feeling two or three 
battles in which I thought the brig Aimable 
had actually accomplished miracles. While I 
thus expressed the courteous interest of good 
breeding, Mile. Marguerite still, to my surprise, 
regarded me with manifest dissatisfaction and 
annoyance. 

Her grandfather, however, listened attentively, 
and I saw that his head was rising little by little. 
A strange smile lighted up his haggard face and 
swept away his wrinkles. All at once he rose, and, 
seizing the arms of his chair, drew himself up to 
his full height; the glare of battle flashed from 
the hollow sockets of his eyes, and he shouted in 
a sonorous voice that made me start : 

“ Helm to windward ! Hard to windward ! 
Larboard fire ! Lay to ; lay to ! Grapple, smart 
now, we have them ! Fire, there above ! Sweep 
them well, sweep the bridge ! Now follow me — 
together — down with the English, down with the 
cursed Saxon ! Hurrah ! 

With this last cry, which rattled hoarsely in his 
throat, he sank exhausted into his "chair ; in vain 
his grand - daughter sought to aid him. Mile. 
Laroque, with a quick imperious gesture, urged 
me to depart, and I left the room immediately. 
I found my way as best I could through the 
5 65 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

labyrinth of corridors and staircases, congratu- 
lating myself very much on the talent for apropos 
which I had displayed in my interview with the 
old captain of the Aimable. 

Alain, the gray-haired servant who had received 
me when I arrived, was waiting for me in the hall 
to tell me from Mme. Laroque that I should not 
have time to go to my quarters before dinner, and 
that it would not be necessary for me to change 
my dress. As I entered the salon , a company of 
about twenty people were leaving it in order of 
precedence on their way to the dining-room. This 
was the first time I had taken part in any social 
function since the change in my condition. Ac- 
customed to the small distinctions which the eti- 
quette of the drawing-room grants to birth and 
fortune, I felt keenly the first symptoms of that 
indifference and contempt to which my new situa- 
tion must necessarily expose me. Repressing as 
well as I could this ebullition of false pride, I gave 
my arm to a young lady, well made and pretty, 
though rather small. She had kept in the back- 
ground as the guests passed out, and, as I had 
guessed, she proved to be the governess, Mile. 
Helouin. The place at table marked as mine was 
next to hers. While we were taking our seats, 
Mile. Marguerite appeared guiding like Antigone 
66 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

the slow and dragging steps of her grandfather. 
With the air of tranquil majesty peculiar to her, 
she came and sat down on my right, and the big 
Newfoundland, who seemed to be the official 
guardian of this princess, took up his place as sen- 
tinel behind her chair. I thought it my duty to 
express at once my regret at having so maladroitly 
aroused memories which seemed to have such an 
unfortunate effect on her grandfather. 

“ It is for me to apologize,” she answered. “ I 
should have warned you never to speak of the 
English in my grandfather’s presence. . . . Do 
you know Brittany well ? ” 

I said that I had not seen it till to-day, but 
that I was perfectly delighted to know it, and to 
show, moreover, that I was worthy so to do, I en- 
larged in lyric style on the picturesque beauties 
that had struck me during the journey. Just as I 
was hoping that this clever flattery would secure 
me the good graces of the young Bretonne, I was 
surprised to see her show symptoms of impatience 
and boredom. Decidedly I was not fortunate 
with this young lady. 

“ Good ! I see,” she said with a singular ex- 
pression of irony, “that you love all that is beau- 
tiful, all that appeals to the soul and the imagina- 
tion — nature, bloom, heather, rocks, and the fine 
67 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

arts. You will get on wonderfully well with 
Mile. Helouin, who adores all those things. For 
my part I care nothing about them.” 

“ Then in Heaven’s name, mademoiselle, what 
are the things you love ? ” 

I asked the question in a playful tone. Mile. 
Marguerite turned sharply on me, flashed a 
haughty look at me, and replied curtly : 

“ I love my dog. Here, Mervyn !” 

She thrust her hand fondly into the New- 
foundland’s thick coat. Standing on his hind 
legs, he had already stretched his huge head be- 
tween my plate and Mile. Marguerite’s. 

I began to observe this young lady with more 
interest, and to search for the outward signs of the 
unimpressionable soul on which she appeared to 
pride herself. 

I had at first supposed that Mile. Laroque was 
very tall, but this impression was due to the noble 
and harmonious character of her beauty. She is 
really of medium height. The rounded oval of 
her face and her haughty and well-poised neck are 
lightly tinged with sombre gold. Her hair, which 
lies in strong relief upon her forehead, ripples at 
every movement of her head with bluish reflec- 
tions. The fine and delicate nostrils seem to have 
been copied from the divine model of a Roman 
68 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

Madonna, and cut in living pearl. Under the 
large, deep, and pensive eyes, the golden sun-burn 
of the cheeks deepens into an aureole of deeper 
brown, which looks like the shadow of the eye- 
lashes, or may be a circle seared by the burning 
glances of her eyes. 

It is hard to describe the sovereign sweetness of 
the smile which animates this lovely face at inter- 
vals, and tempers the splendour of the great eyes. 
Of a surety, the goddess of poetry, of reverie, and 
of fairy realms might boldly claim the homage of 
mortals under the form of this child, who loves 
nothing but her dog. In her rarest creations 
nature often reserves her most cruel deceptions 
for us. 

After all, it matters little to me. I see plainly 
that I am to play in the imagination of Mile. 
Marguerite a part something like that of a negro, 
which, as we know, is not an object particularly 
attractive to Creoles. For my part, I flatter my- 
self that I am quite as proud as Mile. Marguerite. 
The most impossible kind of love for me is one 
which might lay me open to the charge of schem- 
ing or self-seeking. But I fancy that I shall not 
require much moral courage to meet so remote a 
danger, for Mile. Marguerite’s beauty is of the 
kind which attracts the contemplation of the 
69 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

artist, rather than any warmer and more human 
sentiment. 

However, at the name of Mervyn, which Mile. 
Marguerite had given to her body-guard, Mile. 
Hdlouin, my left-hand neighbour, plunged boldly 
into the Arthurian cycle, and was so good as to in- 
form me that Mervyn was the correct name of the 
celebrated enchanter, whom the vulgar call Mer- 
lin. From the Knights of the Round Table she 
worked back to the days of Caesar and all the hier- 
archy of druids, bards, and ovates defiled in tedious 
procession before me. After them we fell, as a 
matter of course, from dolmen to menhir and from 
galgal to cromlech. 

While I wandered in Celtic forests with Mile. 
H£louin, who wanted only a little more flesh to 
make quite a respectable druidess, the widow of 
the stock-broker made the echoes resound with 
complaints as ceaseless and monotonous as those 
of a blind beggar : They had forgotten to give 
her a foot-warmer ! They gave her cold soup ! 
They gave her bones without meat ! That was 
how she was treated ! Still, she was used to it. 
Ah, it is sad to be poor, very sad ! She wished 
she were dead. 

“Yes, doctor” — she was speaking to her 
neighbour, who listened to her wailings with 
70 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

slightly ironical interest — “yes, doctor, I am not 
joking ; I do wish I were dead. I am sure it 
would be a great relief to everybody. Think 
what it must be — to have been in the position 
I’ve been in, to have eaten off silver plate with 
one’s own coat of arms, and now to be reduced to 
charity, to be the sport of servants ! No one 
knows what I suffer in this house ; no one ever 
will know. The proud suffer without complain- 
ing, so I say nothing, doctor, but I think all the 
more.” 

“ Of course, dear lady,” said the doctor, whose 
name was Desmarets. “ Don’t say any more. 
Take a good drink. That will calm you.” 

“Nothing but death will calm me, doctor.” 

“ Very well, madame, I am ready when you 
are,” said the doctor resolutely. 

Towards the centre of the table the attention 
of the company was monopolized by the careless, 
caustic, and animated braggadocio of a M. de 
Bevallan, who seemed to be allowed the latitude 
of a very intimate friend. He is a very tall man, 
no longer young, of a type closely akin to that of 
Francis I. 

They listened to him as if he were an oracle, 
and Mile. Laroque herself showed as much inter- 
est and admiration as she seemed capable of feel- 

71 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

in g for anything in this world. But, as most of 
his popular witticisms referred to local anecdotes 
and parish gossip, I could not adequately appre- 
ciate the merits of this Armorican lion. 

I had reason, however, to appreciate his cour- 
tesy ; after dinner he offered me a cigar, and 
showed me the way to the smoking-room, where 
he did the honours to three or four extremely 
young men, who evidently thought him a model 
of good manners and refined wickedness. 

“ Well, Bevallan,” said one of these young 
fellows, “you’ve not given up hopes of the 
priestess of the sun-god ? ” 

“ Never!” replied M. de Bdvallan. “ I would 
wait ten months — ten years, if necessary — but I 
will marry her or no one shall ! ” 

“You’re a lucky chap! The governess will 
help you to be patient.” 

“ Must I cut out your tongue, or cut off your 
ears, young Arthur?” said M. de Bevallan, going 
towards him and indicating my presence with a 
hasty gesture. 

A delightful conversational pell-mell then fol- 
lowed, which introduced me to all the horses, all 
the dogs, and all the ladies of the neighbourhood. 
It would not be a bad thing for ladies if, for once 
in their lives, they could hear the kind of conver- 
72 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

sation which goes on between men in the effusive 
mood that follows a copious repast. It would 
show them exactly the delicacy of our manners, 
and the amount of confidence they are calculated 
to inspire. I am not in the least prudish, but in 
my opinion this conversation outran the limits 
of the freest jesting ; it touched on everything, 
gaily outraged everything, took on a gratuitous 
tone of universal profanation. My education is, 
perhaps, incomplete, for it has left me with a cer- 
tain reserve of reverence, that I think should be 
maintained even in the wildest extravagances of 
high spirits. 

But we have in the France of to-day our young 
America, which is not happy unless it can blas- 
pheme a little after drinking ; we have the future 
hopes of the nation, those amiable little ruffians, 
without father or mother, without God or country, 
who seem to be the raw products of some heart- 
less and soulless machine, which has accidentally 
deposited them on this planet not at all to its 
beautification. 

In short, M. de Bdvallan, who had appointed 
himself professor of cynicism to these beardless 
routs, did not please me, nor do I think that I 
pleased him. I retired very early on the ground 
of fatigue. 


73 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

At my request old Alain procured a lantern 
and guided me across the park to my future quar- 
ters. After a few minutes’ walk, we crossed a 
wooden bridge over a stream and found ourselves 
in front of a massive arched doorway, flanked by 
two small towers. It was the entrance to the 
ancient chateau. A ring of aged oak and pine 
shut in this feudal fragment, and gave it an air of 
profound seclusion. It is in this ruin that I am 
to live. My apartments run above the door from 
one of the towers to the other, and consist of 
three rooms very neatly hung with chintz. I am 
not displeased with this gloomy abode ; it suits 
my fortunes. As soon as I had got rid of 
Alain I began to write the account of this event- 
ful day, breaking off occasionally to listen to the 
gentle murmur of the stream under my window, 
and to the call of the legendary owl celebrating 
his doleful loves in the neighbouring woods. 


July ist. 

I must now try to pick up the thread of my 
personal and private life, which for the past two 
months has been somewhat lost among the daily 
duties of my post. 

The day after my arrival I stayed at home for 
some hours, studying the ledgers and papers of 
74 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

my predecessor, le pere Hivart, as they call him 
here. I lunched at the chateau, where only a few 
of last night’s guests remained. Mme. Laroque 
had lived a great deal in Paris before her father-in- 
law’s health condemned her to perpetual rusticity. 
In her retirement she had kept her taste for the 
culture, elegance, or frivolity which had centred 
in the Rue du Bac when Mme. de Stael and her 
turban held sway. She had also visited most 
of the large cities of Europe, and had brought 
away from them an interest in literature far ex- 
ceeding the ordinary Parisian curiosity and eru- 
dition. She read a great many newspapers and 
reviews, and endeavoured to follow, as far as it 
was possible at such a distance, the movement of 
that refined civilization of which museums and 
new books are the more or less ephemeral fruit 
and flowers. We were talking at lunch about a 
new opera, and Mme. Laroque asked M. de Bdval- 
lan a question about it which he could not answer, 
although he professes to be well informed of all 
that takes place on the Boulevard des Italiens. 
Mme. Laroque then turned to me with an air that 
showed how little she expected her man of busi- 
ness to be acquainted with such matters; but it 
happened, unfortunately, that these were the only 
“ affairs ” with which I was familiar. I had heard 


7 5 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

in Italy this very opera which had just been played 
in France for the first time. The very reserve of 
my answers excited Mme. Laroque’s curiosity ; 
she questioned me closely, and before long put me 
in possession of all the enthusiasms, souvenirs, and 
impressions she had got in her travels. Soon we 
were discussing the most celebrated theatres and 
galleries of the Continent like old friends, and 
when we left the table our conversation was so 
animated that, to avoid breaking the thread of it, 
Mme. Laroque almost unconsciously took my arm. 
We continued our exchange of sympathies in the 
drawing-room, Mme. Laroque gradually dropping 
the kindly, patronizing tone which had rather 
grated on me hitherto. 

She confessed that she was possessed by a 
mania for the theatre, and that she thought of hav- 
ing some theatricals at the chateau. She asked 
my advice on the management of this amusement, 
and I gave her some details of particular plays 
that I had seen in Paris and St. Petersburg. 
Then, as I had no intention of abusing her good- 
nature, I rose quickly, saying that I meant to in- 
augurate my work at once by examining a large 
farm about two leagues from the chateau. This 
announcement seemed to fill Mme. Laroque with 
consternation ; she looked at me, fidgeted among 
76 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

her cushions, held her hands to the brazier, and at 
last said in a low voice : 

“Oh, what does it matter? You can put 
it off.” 

And as I insisted, she replied with comical 
embarrassment : 

“ But you cannot ; the roads are horrible. . . . 
You must wait for the fine weather.” 

“ No, madame,” I said, smiling, “ I will not 
wait a minute ; if I am to be your bailiff I must 
look after your affairs.” 

“ Madame,” said old Alain, who had come in, 
“ M. Odiot could have le pere Hivarf s old gig ; it 
is not on springs, but it’s all the more solid for 
that.” 

Mme. Laroque darted a withering glance at 
the miserable Alain for daring to suggest le pere 
Hivart's gig to an agent who had been to the 
Grand Duchess H diene’s theatricals. 

“Wouldn’t the buggy be able to do it, 
Alain ? ” she asked. 

“ The buggy, madame ? Oh, no ! I don’t be- 
lieve it could get into the lane, and if it did, it 
would certainly not come out whole.” 

I declared that I could walk easily. 

“No, no,” declared Mme. Laroque; “that’s 
impossible. I couldn’t allow it. Let me see . . . 
77 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

We have half a dozen horses here doing nothing ; 
but perhaps you don’t ride ? ” 

“ Oh, I ride, but — you really need not — I am 
going to ” 

“ Alain, get a horse saddled for M. Odiot. . . . 
Which do you suggest, Marguerite?” 

“ Give him Proserpine,” whispered M. de Be- 
vallan maliciously. 

“ Oh, no ! not Proserpine,” declared Mar- 
guerite. 

“And why not Proserpine ?” I asked. 

“ Because she’d throw you,” said the girl 
frankly. 

“ Oh, would she ? Really ? May I ask, mad- 
emoiselle, if you ride her ? ” 

“Yes, I do, but she gives me some trouble.” 

“ Oh, well, perhaps she’ll give you less when 
I’ve ridden her once or twice ! That decides me. 
Have Proserpine saddled, Alain.” 

Mile. Marguerite’s dark eyebrows contracted 
as she sat down with a gesture that disclaimed all 
responsibility for the catastrophe she foresaw. 

“If you want spurs,” said M. de Bevallan, 
who evidently did not mean me to return alive, 
“ I have a pair at your service.” 

Without appearing to notice Mile. Mar- 
guerite’s reproachful look at the obliging gentle- 
78 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

man, I accepted his offer. Five minutes later a 
frantic scuffling announced the approach of Pros- 
erpine, who was brought with some difficulty to 
one of the flights of steps under the private 
garden. She was a fine half-bred, as black as jet. 
I at once went down the perron. Some kind 
people, with M. de Bdvallan at their head, fol- 
lowed me to the terrace — from motives of hu- 
manity, no doubt — and at the same time the three 
windows of the salon were opened for the use of 
the women and old men. I would willingly have 
dispensed with all this publicity, but it could not 
be helped, and besides, I had very little anxiety 
about the result of this adventure. I might be a 
very young land agent, but I was an old horseman. 
I could scarcely walk when my father put me 
upon a horse — to my mother’s great alarm — and 
afterward he took the greatest pains to render me 
his equal in an art in which he excelled. Indeed, 
he had carried my training to the verge of extrav- 
agance, sometimes making me put on the heavy 
ancestral armour to perform my feats of equi- 
tation. 

Proserpine allowed me to disentangle the reins, 
and even to touch her neck without giving the 
slightest sign of irritation ; but as soon as she felt 
my foot in the stirrup she shied at once, and sent 
79 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

a volley of kicks above the marble vases on the 
staircase ; then sat comfortably down on her hind- 
quarters and beat the air with her forefeet. After 
this she rested, quivering all over. “A bit fidgety 
to mount,” said the groom, with a wink. 

“ So I see, my good fellow, but I shall astonish 
her. See,” and at the same time I sprang into the 
saddle without touching the stirrup and got my 
seat before Proserpine had quite realized what had 
happened. The instant after we shot at a hard 
gallop into the chestnut avenue, followed by some 
clapping of hands, which M. de Bevallan had the 
grace to start. 

That evening I could see, from the way 
people treated me, that this incident, trifling as it 
was, had raised me in the public opinion. Some 
other talents of the same sort, which I owed to my 
education, helped me to secure the only kind of 
consideration I wished for — one which respected 
my personal dignity. Besides, I made it quite evi- 
dent that I should not abuse the kindness and con- 
sideration shown me, by usurping a position in- 
compatible with my humble duties at the chateau. 
I shut myself up in my tower as much as I could 
without being boorish ; in a word, I kept strictly 
in my place, so that none should be tempted to 
remind me of it. 


80 


































































































































































































































































































































The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

A few days after my arrival, during one of the 
large dinners which at that season were of nearly 
daily occurrence, I heard the sous-prtfet of the 
neighbouring little town, who was sitting next to 
the lady of the house, ask her who I was. Mme. 
Laroque, who is rather forgetful, did not remem- 
ber that I was quite close, and, nolens volens , I 
heard every word of her reply. 

“ Please, don’t ask me,” she said. “ There’s 
some extraordinary mystery about him. We think 
he must be a prince in disguise. . . . There are so 
many who like to see the world in this fashion. 
This one has every conceivable talent : he rides, 
plays the piano, draws, and does each to perfec- 
tion ! . . . Between ourselves, my dear sous-prifet, 

I believe he is a very bad steward, but there’s no 
doubt he is a very agreeable man.” 

The sousprdfet — who also is a very agreeable 
man, or thinks he is, which is just as satisfactory 
to himself — stroked his fine whiskers with his 
plump hand and said sweetly that there were* 
enough beautiful eyes in the chateau to explain 
many mysteries ; that he quite understood the 
steward’s object, and that Love was the legitimate 
father of Folly, and the proper steward of the 
Graces. . . . Then, changing his tone abruptly, 
he added : 

6 81 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“ However, madame, if you have the slightest 
anxiety about this person, I will have him interro- 
gated to-morrow by the head constable.” 

Mme. Laroque protested against this excess 
of gallantry. The conversation so far as it con- 
cerned me went no further. But I was very 
much annoyed, not with the sous-prtfet, who had 
greatly amused me ; but with Mme. Laroque, who 
seemed to have been more than just to my per- 
sonal qualities, and not sufficiently convinced of 
my official abilities. 

As it happened, I had to renew the lease of one 
of the larger farms on the day following. The 
business had to be transacted with a very astute 
old peasant, but, nevertheless, I held my own with 
him, thanks to a judicious combination of legal 
phraseology and diplomatic reserve. When we 
had agreed on the details, the farmer quietly 
placed three rouleaux of gold on my desk. 
Though I did not understand this payment, as 
there was nothing due, I refrained from showing 
any surprise. By some indirect questions, which 
I asked as I unfolded the packets, I ascertained 
that this sum was the earnest-money of the bar- 
gain ; or, in other words, a sort of bonus which the 
farmers present to the landlord when their leases 
are renewed. 


82 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

I had not thought of claiming this, as I had 
not found it mentioned in the leases drawn up 
by my able predecessor, which had been my 
models. For the moment I drew no conclusions 
from his silence on this point, but when I handed 
over the windfall to Mme. Laroque her surprise 
astonished me. 

“And what is this ?” she said. 

I explained the nature of the payment, and 
had to repeat my explanation. 

“ And is it a usual custom ?” she continued. 

“Yes, madame, whenever a lease is renewed.” 

“ But, to my knowledge, there have been ten 
leases renewed in the last thirty years. . . . How 
is it we never heard of such a custom ? ” 

“ I cannot say, madame.” 

Mme. Laroque fell into an abyss of reflec- 
tions, in which, perhaps, she encountered the ven- 
erable shade of le plre Hivart . At length she 
slightly shrugged her shoulders, looked at me, 
then at the gold, then again at me, and seemed 
to hesitate. At last, leaning back in her chair, 
sighing deeply, and speaking with a simplicity 
which I greatly appreciated, she said : 

“Very well, monsieur. Thank you.” 

Mme. Laroque had the good taste not to 
compliment me on this instance of ordinary 
83 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

honesty ; but, none the less, she conceived a 
great idea of her steward’s ability and virtues. A 
few days later I had a proof of this. Her daugh- 
ter was reading an account of a voyage to the 
pole to her, in which an extraordinary bird is 
mentioned — “ qui ne vole pas.” * 

“ Like my steward,” she said. 

I sincerely believe that from this time my 
devotion to the work I had undertaken gave me 
a claim to a more positive commendation. Soon 
afterward, when I went to see my sister in Paris, 
M. Laubepin thanked me warmly for having so 
creditably redeemed the pledges he had given on 
my behalf. 

“ Courage, Maxime,” he said. “We shall give 
Helene her dowry. The poor child will not have 
noticed anything unusual, and you, my friend, 
will have nothing to regret. Believe me, you 
possess what in this world comes nearest to hap- 
piness, and I am sure you will always possess it, 
thank Heaven ! It is a peaceful conscience and 
the manly serenity of a soul devoted to duty.” 

The old man is right, of course. I am at 
peace, but I cannot say that I am happy. My 
soul is not yet ripe for the austere delights of 

* “ Which does not fly." But the French verb voler is also to 
steal ; hence the application. 


84 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

sacrifice ; it has its outbursts of youthfulness and 
of despair. My life is no longer my own : it is 
devoted and consecrated to a weaker, dearer life ; 
it has no future : it is imprisoned in a cloister that 
will never be opened. My heart must not beat, 
my brain must not think, save for another. So 
be it ! May Helene be happy ! Years are steal- 
ing upon me. May they come quickly ! I pray 
that they will ; the coldness that comes with them 
will strengthen my courage. 

Besides, I cannot complain of a situation 
which has, in fact, fallen agreeably short of my 
worst forebodings, and has even surpassed my 
brightest expectations. My work, my frequent 
journeys into the neighbouring departments, and 
my love of solitude, often keep me away from 
the chateau, where I particularly avoid all the 
more festive gatherings. And perhaps it is be- 
cause I go to them so seldom that I am welcomed 
so kindly. Mme. Laroque, in particular, shows 
a real affection for me ; she makes me the con- 
fidant of her curious and perfectly sincere fancies 
about poverty, sacrifice, and poetic abnegation, 
which form such an amusing contrast to the chilly 
Creole’s multitudinous contrivances for comfort. 

Sometimes she envies the gipsies carrying 
their children on a wretched cart along the 
85 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

roads, and cooking their food under hedges ; 
sometimes it is the Sisters of Charity ; some- 
times the cantinilres , whose heroic work she 
longs to share. 

And she never ceases to lament the late M. 
Laroque’s admirable health, which prevented his 
wife from showing that nature had meant her for 
a sick-nurse. Nevertheless, she has lately had 
fixed to her chair a kind of niche like a sentry- 
box, as a protection from draughts. The other 
morning I found her triumphantly installed in 
this kiosk, where she really awaits her martyr- 
dom in considerable comfort. 

I have scarcely less reason to be satisfied with 
the other inhabitants of the chateau. Mile. Mar- 
guerite, who is always plunged like a Nubian 
sphinx in some mysterious vision, nevertheless 
condescends to treat me to my favourite airs with 
the utmost good-nature. She has a fine contralto 
voice, which she uses with perfect art, but at the 
same time with an indifference and coldness 
which I think must be deliberate. Sometimes, in 
an unguarded moment, I have heard her tones 
become impassioned, but almost immediately she 
has returned to an icy correctness, as if ashamed 
of the lapse from her character or from her role. 

A few games of piquet with M. Laroque, 
86 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

which I had the tact to lose, won me the favour 
of the poor old man. Sometimes I find his dim 
and feeble gaze fixed on me with strange intent- 
ness, as if some dream of the past, some fanciful 
resemblance, had half revived among the mists of 
an exhausted memory, in which the images of 
a century hover confusedly. 

They actually wanted to return me the money 
I lost to him. Mme. Aubry, who usually plays 
with the old captain, accepts these restitutions 
without scruple ; but this does not prevent her 
from winning pretty frequently, on which occa- 
sions she has furious encounters with the old 
corsair. M. Laubepin was lenient when he 
described this lady merely as embittered. I have 
no liking for her, but, out of consideration for the 
others, I have made an effort to gain her good- 
will, and have succeeded in doing so by listening 
patiently first to her lamentations over her pres- 
ent position, and then to her impressive descrip- 
tion of her former grandeur, her silver, her furni- 
ture, her lace, and her gloves. 

It must be confessed that I have come to the 
right school to learn to despise the advantages I 
have lost. Every one here by their attitude and 
language eloquently exhorts me to the contempt 
of riches. Firstly, Mme. Aubry, who might be 
87 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

aptly compared to those shameless gluttons whose 
greediness takes away one’s appetite, and who 
disgust one with the dishes they praise ; the old 
man, perishing as sadly among his millions as 
Job on his dunghill ; the good woman, romantic 
and blast, who in the midst of her inopportune 
prosperity dreams of the forbidden fruit of suffer- 
ing; and lastly, the haughty Marguerite, who 
wears like a crown of thorns the diadem of 
beauty and opulence which Heaven has forced 
on her brow. A strange girl ! 

Nearly every fine morning I see her ride past 
the windows of my belfry ; she bows gravely to 
me, the black plume of her felt riding hat dip- 
ping and waving in the wind ; and then she 
slowly disappears along the shaded path that runs 
through the ruins of the ancient chateau. Some- 
times old Alain follows her, and sometimes her 
only companion is the huge and faithful Mervyn, 
who strides at the side of his beautiful mistress 
like a pensive bear. So attended, she covers all 
the country round on her errands of charity. 
She does not need a protector, for there is not a 
cottage within six leagues where she is not known 
and worshipped as the goddess of good works. 
The poor people call her “Mademoiselle,” as if 
they were speaking of one of those daughters of 
88 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

kings who give poetry to their legends, and whose 
beauty and power and mystery they recognise 
in her. 

I, meanwhile, am seeking the key to the som- 
bre preoccupation that clouds her brow, the 
haughty and defiant severity of her eyes, the cold 
bitterness of her tongue. I ask myself if these 
are the natural traits of a strange and complex 
character, or the symptoms of some secret suffer- 
ing, remorse, or fear, or love, which preys on this 
noble heart. However slightly one may be inter- 
ested in the question, it is impossible not to feel a 
certain curiosity about a person so remarkable. 
Last night, while old Alain, with whom I am a 
favourite, was serving my solitary repast, I said : 

“Well, Alain, it’s been a lovely day. Have 
you been riding ?” 

“Yes, sir, this morning, with mademoiselle.” 

“ Oh, indeed ! ” 

“You must have seen us go by, sir.” 

“ Very likely. I sometimes do see you pass. 
You look well on horseback, Alain.” 

“You’re very kind, sir. But mademoiselle 
looks better than I do.” 

“ She is a very beautiful young lady.” 

“ You’re right, sir, and she’s fair inside as well 
as outside. Just like her mother. I’ll tell you 
89 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

something, sir. You know, perhaps, that this 
property belonged to the last Comte de Castennec, 
whom I had the honour of serving. When the 
Laroques bought the chateau I must own that I 
was rather upset, and not inclined to stay with the 
new people. I had been brought up to respect 
the nobility, and it went against my feelings to 
live with people of no birth. You may have no- 
ticed, sir, that I am glad to wait upon you ; that 
is because I think you look like a gentleman. 
Are you quite sure you don’t belong to the nobil- 
ity, sir ? ” 

“ Quite sure, my poor Alain.” 

“ Well, it’s of no consequence, sir, and this is 
what I wanted to tell you,” said Alain, with a 
graceful inclination. “ In the service of these 
ladies I have learned that nobility of the heart 
is as good as the other, more especially that of the 
Comte de Castennec, who had a weakness for 
beating his servants. Still, sir, it’s a great pity 
mademoiselle cannot marry a gentleman with a 
fine old name. Then she would be perfect.” 

“ But, Alain, it seems to me that it only de- 
pends on herself.” 

“If you refer to M. de Bdvallan, sir, it cer- 
tainly does, for he asked for her more than six 
months ago. Madame was not opposed to the 
90 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

marriage, and, in fact, after the Laroques, M. de 
Bdvallan is the richest man hereabouts ; but 
mademoiselle, though she didn’t positively refuse, 
wanted time to think the matter over.” 

“ But if she loves M. de Bevallan, and can 
marry him whenever she likes, why is she always 
so sad and thoughtful ? ” 

“ It’s very true, sir, that mademoiselle has 
changed a good deal in the last two or three years. 
Before that she was as merry as a bird ; now she 
seems to have something on her mind, but, if I 
may say so, it is not love for this gentleman.” 

“You don’t seem very fond of M. de Bdvallan 
yourself, Alain. But his family is excellent.” 

“ That does not prevent him from being a bad 
lot, sir, always running after the country girls, and 
for no good either. And if you used your eyes, 
sir, you might see that he is quite ready to play 
the sultan here in the chateau itself while he’s 
waiting for something better.” 

After a significant pause Alain went on. 

“ Pity you haven’t a hundred thousand francs 
a year, sir.” 

“ And why, Alain ? ” 

“ Because . . .” and Alain shook his head 
thoughtfully. 


9i 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

July 25th. 

During the past month I have made one 
friend and two enemies. The enemies are Mile. 
Marguerite and Mile. Hdlouin. The friend is a 
maiden lady of eighty-eight. Scarcely a compen- 
sation ! I will first make up my account with 
Mile. Helouin, an ungrateful young lady. What 
she considers my offences should rather have se- 
cured her esteem. But she is one of the many 
women who do not care either to give, or to in- 
spire, such a commonplace sentiment. From the 
first I had been inclined to establish friendly rela- 
tions with her. The governess and the steward 
were on a similar footing ; we had a common 
ground in our subordinate position at the chateau. 
I have always tried to show to ladies in her posi- 
tion the consideration which seems to me due to 
those in circumstances so precarious, humiliating, 
and hopeless. Besides, Mile. Helouin is pretty, 
intelligent, and accomplished, though she rather 
deducts from these qualities by the exaggerated 
liveliness of manner, the feverish coquetry, and 
the tinge of pedantry which are the failings of her 
profession. 

I do not claim any credit for my chivalrous at- 
titude towards her. It seemed to me a sort of 
duty when, as various hints had warned me, I be- 
92 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

came aware that a devouring lion in the semblance 
of King Francis I was prowling round my young 
protegee. This duplicity, which did credit to M. 
de Bevallan’s audacity, was carried on, under cover 
of a friendly interest, with an astuteness and confi- 
dence well calculated to deceive the careless and 
unsuspecting. Mme. Laroque and her daughter, 
especially, are too little acquainted with the wick- 
edness of this world, and too little in touch with 
realities to have the slightest suspicion. For my 
own part, I was angry with this insatiable lady- 
killer, and did my best to spoil his plans. More 
than once I secured the attention he desired to 
monopolize ; and I tried more especially to coun- 
teract or diminish the bitter sense of neglect and 
isolation, which makes women in Mile. Helouins 
position ready to accept the kind of consolation 
which was being offered to her. Have I ever 
throughout this ill-advised contest outstepped the 
delicate limits of brotherly protection ? I think 
not. The very words of the brief dialogue which 
has suddenly altered the character of our rela- 
tions bear witness to my discretion. One even- 
ing last week we were taking the air on the ter- 
race. During the day I had had occasion to 
show some kindly attention to Mile. Helouin, 
and she now took my arm and said, as she 
93 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

bit at an orange-blossom with her small white 
teeth : 

“ M. Maxime, you are very good to me.” 

Her voice was a little unsteady. 

“ I hope so, mademoiselle.” 

“ You are a true friend.” 

“Yes, indeed.” 

“ But what kind of a friend ?” 

“ A true friend, as you say.” 

“A friend who — loves me ?” 

“ Surely.” 

“Much?” 

“ Most decidedly.” 

“ Passionately ? ” 

“No.” 

At this word, which I uttered very clearly and 
with a steady look, Mile. Helouin flung the 
orange-blossom away and dropped my arm. Since 
this unlucky hour I have been treated with a con- 
tempt I do not deserve, and I should have been 
convinced that friendship between man and 
woman is a mere illusion, if I had not had on the 
following day something like an antithesis to this 
adventure. 

I had gone to spend the evening at the cha- 
teau, and as the two or three families who had 
been staying there for the last fortnight had left 
94 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

in the morning, I met only the habituts — the curd, 
the tax-collector, Dr. Desmarets, and General de 
Saint-Cast and his wife, who, like the doctor, 
lived at the neighbouring little town. 

When I came in, Mme. de Saint-Cast, who 
had apparently brought her husband a handsome 
fortune, was in close conversation with Mme. 
Aubry. As usual, these ladies were in perfect 
agreement. In language in which distinction of 
form rivalled elevation of thought, they, like two 
shepherds in an eclogue, alternately lauded the in- 
comparable charms of wealth. 

“ You are perfectly right, madame,” said Mme. 
Aubry. “ There is only one thing in the world 
worth having, and that is money. When I had 
money I utterly despised every one who had not, 
and now I think it quite natural for people to de- 
spise me, and I don’t complain if they do.” 

“No one despises you on that account, 
madame,” replied Mme. de Saint-Cast, “ most 
certainly not ; but all the same there’s a very great 
difference between poverty and riches, I must 
confess, as the general knows well enough. Why, 
he had absolutely nothing when I married him — 
except his sword — and one doesn’t get fat on a 
sword, does one, madame ? ” 

“No, no, indeed, madame !” exclaimed Mme. 

95 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

Aubry, delighted with this bold metaphor. 
“ Honour and glory are all very well in novels, 
but a nice carriage is much better in practice, isn’t 
it, madame ? ” 

“ Of course it is, madame ; and that’s just what 
I was saying to the general this morning as we 
came here. Isn’t it, general ? ” 

“Eh, what?” growled the general, who was 
playing cards in a corner with the old corsair. 

“You hadn’t a penny when I married you, 
general, had you?” continued Mme. de Saint- 
Cast. “You won’t think of denying that, I sup- 
pose.” 

“We’ve heard it often enough, I should say,” 
growled the general. 

“That doesn’t alter the fact that if it hadn’t 
been for me, general, you’d have had to travel on 
foot, and that wouldn’t have been a fine thing for 
you with your wounds. Your half-pay of six or 
seven hundred francs wouldn’t have kept a car- 
riage for you, my friend. I was saying this to 
him to-day apropos of our new carriage, which is 
as easy as an arm-chair. Of course I paid a good 
price for it ; it’s four thousand francs out of my 
pocket, madame.” 

“ I can well believe it, madame. My best car- 
riage cost me fully five thousand, including the 
96 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

tiger-skin mat, which was worth five hundred francs 
alone.” 

“Yes,” replied Mme. de Saint-Cast; “but I 
have had to be a little careful, for I’ve just been 
getting new drawing-room furniture ; the carpet 
and curtains alone cost me fifteen thousand francs. 
You’ll say it’s too good for a country hole like 
this. You’re right. But the whole town is lost 
in admiration, and, after all, one does like to be 
respected, madame ! ” 

“ Of course, madame,” replied Mme. Aubry, 
“we like to be respected, and we are respected 
according to the money we have. For my part, I 
console myself for not being respected now, by 
remembering that if I were as well off as I once 
was, I should see all the people who despise me at 
my feet again.” 

“ Except me, by God ! ” cried Dr. Desmarets, 
jumping up. “You might have a hundred mil- 
lions a year, and I give you my word of honour 
you wouldn’t see me at your feet ! And now I’ll 
go and get some air, for, devil take me, if one can 
breathe here ! ” 

So saying, the honest doctor left the room, and 
my heart went out to him for the outburst that 
had relieved my own sense of disgust and indig- 
nation. 


7 


97 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

Although M. Desmarets was received at the 
house as a Chrysostom to whom great license of 
speech was allowed, his language had been so for- 
cible that it had produced a certain embarrassment 
in the company, and an awkward silence ensued. 
Mme. Laroque broke it adroitly by asking her 
daughter whether it was eight o’clock. 

“ It can’t be, mother,” replied Mile. Mar- 
guerite, “for Mile, de Porhoet has not come 
yet.” 

The minute after, as the clock struck, the door 
opened, and Mile. Jocelynde de Porhoet-Gael en- 
tered the room, with astronomical punctuality, on 
the arm of Dr. Desmarets. 

Mile, de Porhoet-Gael, who had this year 
seen her eighty-eighth spring, and whose appear- 
ance suggested a tall reed wrapped in silk, is the 
last scion of a noble race, whose earliest ancestors 
must be sought among the legendary kings of 
ancient Armorica. Of this house, however, there 
is no authentic record in history until the twelfth 
century, when Juthail, son of Conan le Tort, who 
belonged to the younger branch of the reigning 
family of Brittany, is mentioned. Some drops of 
the Porhoet blood have mingled with that of the 
most illustrious veins of France — those of the 
Rohans, the Lusignans, the Penthievres, and these 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

grands seigneurs had admitted that it was not the 
least pure of their blood. I remember that when 
in a fit of youthful vanity I studied the alliances 
of my family, I noticed the strange name of Por- 
hoet, and that my father, who was very learned in 
such matters, spoke highly in its praise. Mile, de 
Porhoet, who is now the sole bearer of the name, 
had always refused to marry, because she wished 
to preserve as long as possible in the firmament 
of the French nobility the constellation of those 
magic syllables, Porhoet-Gael. It happened one 
day that the origin of the house of Bourbon was 
referred to in her presence. 

“ The Bourbons,” said Mile, de Porhoet, stick- 
ing her knitting-needle into her blond peruke, 
“ the Bourbons are a good family, but ” (with an 
air of modesty) “ there are better.” 

However, it is impossible not to render hom- 
age to this august old lady, who bears with sur- 
prising dignity the heavy and triple majesty of 
birth, age, and misfortune. A wretched lawsuit in 
some foreign country which she has persisted in 
carrying on for fifteen years, has gradually reduced 
a fortune, which was but small to begin with ; and 
now she has scarcely a thousand francs a year. 
Privation has not broken her pride or embittered 
her temper. She is gay, good-humoured, and 
99 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

courteous. She lives, no one quite knows how, 
in her small house with her little servant, and con- 
trives even to find money for charity. To their 
great honour, Mme. Laroque and her daughter 
are devoted to their poor and noble neighbour. 
At their house she is treated with a respectful at- 
tention which amazes Mme. Aubry. I have often 
seen Mile. Marguerite leave the gayest dance to 
make a fourth for Mile, de Porhoet’s rubber, for 
the world would come to an end if Mile, de Por- 
hoet’s whist (halfpenny points) was omitted for a 
single day. I am one of the old lady’s favourite 
partners, and on this particular evening soon 
found myself, with the curd and the doctor, seated 
at the whist-table with the descendant of Conan 
le Tort. 

I ought to mention here that at the com- 
mencement of the last century a grand-uncle of 
Mile, de Porhoet, who held an office in the estab- 
lishment of the Duke d’Anjou, crossed the Pyr- 
enees in the suite of the young prince, who be- 
came Philip V, settled in Spain, and prospered 
there. His posterity became extinct about fif- 
teen years ago, and Mile, de Porhoet, who had 
never lost sight of her Spanish relatives, at 
once declared herself heiress to their considera- 
ble property. Her claims were contested, only 


ioo 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

too justly, I fear, by one of the oldest Castil- 
ian families allied to the Spanish branch of the 
Porhoets. 

Hence the lawsuit which the unfortunate 
octogenarian maintained at great expense, going 
from court to court with a persistence akin to 
mania, which her friends deplored and other peo- 
ple ridiculed. Dr. Desmarets, despite his respect 
for Mile, de Porhoet, belongs to the party who 
laughs ; more particularly, because he strongly 
disapproves of the use to which the poor lady has 
prospectively devoted her fictitious heritage. She 
intends to build in the neighbouring town a 
cathedral in the richest flamboyant style, which 
shall perpetuate the name of the foundress and of 
a great departed race to all future generations. 
This cathedral — dream begotten of a dream ! — is 
the harmless hobby of the old lady. She has had 
the plans made ; she spends her days and some- 
times her nights brooding on its splendours, alter- 
ing its arrangements, or adding to its decoration. 
She speaks of it as already existent : “ I was in 
the nave of my cathedral ; to-night I noticed 
something very ugly in the north aisle of my 
cathedral ; I have altered the uniform of the 
suisse etc., etc. 

“ Well, mademoiselle,” said the doctor, shuf- 


ioi 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

fling the cards, “ have you been working at the 
cathedral since yesterday ? ” 

“Yes, of course I have, doctor; and I’ve had 
a rather happy idea. I have replaced the solid 
wall, which you know separates the choir from 
the sacristy, by a screen of carved foliage in imi- 
tation of the Clisson chapel in the church at Jos- 
selin. It is much lighter.” 

“No doubt ; but in the meanwhile what is 
the news from Spain ? Can it be true, as I think 
I saw in the Revue des Deux Mondes this morn- 
ing, that the young duke of Villa-Hermosa pro- 
poses to put an end to the case in a friendly way, 
by offering to marry you ? ” 

Mademoiselle de Porhoet disdainfully shook 
the plume of faded ribbons attached to her cap. 

“ I should refuse absolutely,” she said. 

“Ah, yes, you say so, mademoiselle ! But how 
about the guitar that’s been heard under your win- 
dows the last few nights ? ” 

“ Bah ! ” 

“ Bah ? And that Spaniard who has been 
prowling about the country in a mantle and yel- 
low boots, sighing as if his heart would burst ? ” 
“You are a feather-head, Dr. Desmarets,” said 
Mademoiselle de Porhoet, calmly opening her 
snuff-box. “ Still — as you wish to know — I may 


102 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

say that my man of business wrote to me from 
Madrid a day or two ago that with a little more 
patience we should see the end of all our troubles.” 

“ I can quite believe that ! Do you know 
where your man of business comes from, madame ? 
Straight from Gil Bias’ cavern. He’ll drain you 
of your last shilling, and then he’ll laugh in your 
face. How much better it would be to give up 
this folly for good and all, and live at ease quietly ! 
What good will these millions do you ? Aren’t 
you happy and respected . . . what more do you 
want ? ... As for your cathedral, I won’t speak 
of it, because — it is a bad joke.” 

“ My cathedral is not a bad joke to any but 
bad jokers, Dr. Desmarets ; besides, I am defend- 
ing my rights, I am fighting for justice ; the prop- 
erty belongs to me. I have heard my father say 
so a hundred times, and never, with my consent, 
shall it go to people who are actually as much 
strangers to our family as yourself, my friend, or,” 
she added, indicating me, “ this gentleman.” 

I was childish enough to resent this remark, 
and at once replied : “As far as I am concerned, 
mademoiselle, you are mistaken ; for my family 
has had the honour of being allied to yours, and 
vice versa .” 

At this startling announcement Mile, de Por- 
103 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

hoet hastily brought her cards, which she held 
spread out fanwise, nearer to her pointed chin, 
and straightening her spare figure, looked me 
in the face as if she doubted my sanity. By a 
tremendous effort she recovered her self-posses- 
sion, and said, as she carried a pinch of Spanish 
snuff to her thin nose, “Young man, you will 
have to prove what you say to me.” 

Ashamed of my foolish boast, and embarrassed 
by the attention it had aroused, I bowed awk- 
wardly without speaking. Our rubber was played 
in gloomy silence. It was ten o’clock, and I was 
preparing to slip off, when Mile, de Porhoet 
touched my arm. 

“Sir,” she said, “will you be so kind as to ac- 
company me to the end of the avenue ?” 

I bowed again and followed her into the park. 
The little servant in Breton costume went first, 
carrying a lantern ; then came Mile, de Porhoet, 
stiff and silent, carefully holding up her worn silk 
frock ; she had coldly declined the offer of my 
arm, and I walked humbly at her side, feeling 
very much dissatisfied with myself. After a few 
minutes of this funeral march the old lady spoke. 

“ Well, sir ?” she said. “You may speak; I 
am waiting. You have asserted that your family 
is allied to mine, and as an alliance of this kind is 


104 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

a piece of history entirely new to me, I shall be 
greatly obliged if you will enlighten me on the 
subject.” 

I had decided that I must at all costs keep the 
secret of my incognito. 

“ I venture to hope, mademoiselle, that you 
won’t take a mere joke quite seriously.” 

“ A joke ! ” exclaimed Mile, de Porhoet. “ A 
nice subject to joke upon ! And, sir, what do 
you people of to-day call the jokes that can be 
boldly addressed to an old and defenceless woman, 
but which you would not dare to utter in the 
presence of a man ? ” 

“ Mademoiselle, you leave me no choice ; I 
must trust to your discretion. I do not know 
whether the name of Champcey d’Hauterive is 
familiar to you ? ” 

“ I know the Champcey d’Hauterives perfectly 
well, sir. They are a good, an excellent Dauphin 
family. What inference am I to make from your 
* question?” 

“ I am the present representative of that 
family.” 

“You!” exclaimed Mile, de Porhoet, coming 
to a sudden halt. “You are a Champcey d’Hau- 
terive ? ” 

“Yes, the male representative, mademoiselle.” 

105 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“ That alters the question,” she said. “ Give 
me your arm, cousin, and tell me your history.” 

I thought that in the circumstances it would 
be better not to conceal anything from her. As 
I finished the painful story of my family troubles, 
we found ourselves opposite a small house, re- 
markably low and narrow. On one side stood a 
kind of low pigeon-house with a pointed roof. 

“ Enter, marquis,” said the daughter of the 
kings of Gael at the threshold of her lowly palace. 
“ I beg that you will enter.” 

The next moment I stepped into a little salon 
meanly paved with brick ; on the faded tapestry 
of the walls hung portraits of ancestors gorgeous 
in ducal ermine. Over the mantel-piece sparkled 
a magnificent clock in tortoise-shell and brass, sur- 
mounted by a group representing the chariot of 
the sun. Some oval-backed arm-chairs and an old 
spindle-legged couch completed the furniture of 
the room. Everything shone with cleanliness, and 
the air was filled with mingled odours of iris, 
Spanish snuff, and aromatic essences. 

“ Pray be seated,” said the old lady, taking her 
place on the couch ; “ pray be seated, my cousin. 
I call you cousin, though we are not related, and 
cannot be, as Jeanne de Porhoet and Hugues de 
Champcey were so ill-advised as to leave no issue. 

106 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

But, with your permission, I should like to treat 
you as a cousin when we are alone, if only to 
make me forget for a moment that I am alone in 
the world. 

“ So, cousin, I see how you are situated ; the 
case is a hard one, most assuredly. But I will 
su gg es t one or two reflections which have solaced 
me, and which I think are likely to bring consola- 
tion to you. 

“In the first place, my dear marquis, I often 
tell myself that among all the charlatans and ex- 
lackeys one now sees rolling in carriages, poverty 
has a peculiar perfume of distinction and good 
taste. And also I am inclined to believe that 
God has brought some of us down to a poor and 
narrow life, that this coarse, materialistic, money- 
grubbing age may have before it the type of a 
merit, dignity, and splendour which owes nothing 
to money, that money cannot buy — that is not 
for sale. In all probability, my cousin, such is the 
providential justification of your situation and of 
mine.” 

I conveyed to Mile, de Porhoet my satisfac- 
tion at having been chosen with her to give the 
world the noble example it needs so much, and 
shows itself so ready to profit by. 

“ For my own part,” she went on, “ I am 
107 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

inured to privation, and I do not feel it much. 
When, in the course of a life that has been too 
long, one has seen a father and four brothers, 
worthy of their father, perish before their time, 
by sword or bullet ; when one has lost, one by 
one, all the objects of one’s affection and worship, 
one must have a very paltry soul to be much con- 
cerned about more or less ample meals and more 
or less dainty clothing. Certainly, marquis, you 
may be sure that if my personal comfort only 
were at stake, I should not trouble about my 
Spanish millions ; but to me it seems but right 
and proper and exemplary that a house like mine 
should not disappear without leaving some per- 
manent sign, some striking monument of its gran- 
deur and its faith. And that is why, cousin, I 
have, in imitation of some of my ancestors, 
thought of the pious foundation of which you 
must have heard, and which, while I have life, 
I shall not relinquish.” 

Assured of my sympathy, the noble old lady 
seemed to lose herself in meditation, and as she 
looked sadly at the fading portraits of her ances- 
tors, only the beat of the hereditary clock broke 
the silence of midnight in the dim room. 

“There will be,” Mile, de Porhoet suddenly 
resumed, in a solemn voice, “ there will be a chap- 
108 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

ter of regular canons attached to the church. 
Each day at matins, a mass will be said in the pri- 
vate chapel of my family, for the repose of my 
soul and the souls of my ancestors. The feet of 
the celebrant priest will tread a slab of unlettered 
marble, which will form the step of the altar and 
cover my ashes.” 

I bent towards her with evident emotion, with 
visible respect. Mile, de Porhoet took my hand 
and pressed it gently. 

“ Cousin,” she said, “ I am not mad, whatever 
they may say. My father, who was truth itself, 
always declared that when the direct line of our 
Spanish branch became exhausted we should be 
sole heirs to the estate. Unfortunately, his sud- 
den and violent death prevented him from giving 
us more exact information ; but, as I cannot doubt 
his word, I do not doubt my rights. However,” 
she added, after a little pause, and in accents of 
touching sadness, “ if I am not mad, I am old, 
and the people in Spain know it. For fifteen 
years they have dragged me on from one delay 
to another ; they are waiting for my death to 
finish everything. And . . . they will not have 
to wait long. Some morning, very soon now, I 
must make my last sacrifice. My dear cathedral 
— my only love, which has taken the place of so 
109 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

many broken or suppressed attachments — will 
have but one stone — that of my tomb.” 

She was silent ; her thin hands wiped away 
two tears that flowed down her worn face, as, 
striving to smile, she said : 

“ Forgive me, cousin, you have enough troubles 
of your own. Besides, it is late — you must go. 
Y ou will compromise me ! ” 

Before leaving, I again recommended the 
greatest discretion in reference to the secret I 
had intrusted to her. She replied, a little naively, 
that I need not be anxious, and that my peace of 
mind and dignity were safe in her hands. Never- 
theless, during the next few days, I suspected, 
from Mme. Laroque’s increased attentions, that 
my excellent friend had handed on my confidence. 
Indeed, Mile, de Porhoet admitted the fact, de- 
claring that the honour of her family demanded 
this, and assured me that Mme. Laroque was 
incapable of betraying a secret intrusted to her, 
even to her own daughter. 

Our interview had filled me with sympathetic 
respect for the old lady, which I tried to express 
by my actions. The evening of the next day I 
taxed all the resources of my pencil in the inven- 
tion of decorations, internal and external, for her 
beloved cathedral. The attention seemed to please 


no 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

her very much, and I soon got into the habit of 
working on the cathedral every evening after our 
whist, enriching the ideal edifice with a statue, a 
pulpit, and a rood-loft. Mile. Marguerite, who 
seems to feel a kind of adoration for her old 
neighbour, associated herself with my work of 
charity by devoting a special album to the Basilica 
Porhoet, which it is my duty to fill with designs 
and drawings. 

And in addition, I offered my old confidant to 
take my share in the inquiries and other matters 
of business connected with her lawsuit. The 
poor lady confessed that I should do her a serv- 
ice ; that though she could still keep up her ordi- 
nary correspondence, her sight was too weak to 
decipher the manuscripts of her archives. Hith- 
erto she had not associated any one with her 
in this important work, for fear of giving more 
occasion to the rustic humourists. In short, she 
accepted me as counsellor and collaborator. 
Since this, I have conscientiously studied the 
voluminous documents of her lawsuit, and I have 
been convinced that the case, which must be 
sooner or later definitively settled, is absolutely 
hopeless from the beginning. M. Laubepin 
agrees with me in this opinion, which as far as 
possible I have concealed from the old lady. 


iii 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

Meanwhile I have pleased her by going through 
her family archives piece by piece ; she still hopes 
to find among them some incontestable proof in 
favour of her claim. Unfortunately, the records 
are very copious, and fill the pigeon-house from 
floor to roof. Yesterday I went early to Mile, 
de Porhoet’s to finish before lunch the examina- 
tion of packet No. 115, which I had begun over- 
night. The lady of the house had not risen yet, 
so, with the help of the little servant, I quietly 
installed myself in the salon and settled down to 
my dusty work. About an hour later, as I was 
going joyfully through the last sheet of packet 
No. 1 15, Mile, de Porhoet came in, dragging a 
huge bundle neatly wrapped up in a white linen 
cover. 

“ Good-morning, my dear cousin,” she said. 
“ I’ve heard how you have been working for me 
this morning, so I determined to work for you. 
Here is packet No. 116.” 

I must confess that at this moment Mile, de 
Porhoet reminded me of the cruel fairy of folk- 
lore, who shuts the princess up in a lonely tower 
and imposes a succession of extraordinary and 
impossible tasks on her. 

“Last night,” she continued, “ I dreamed that 
the key of my Spanish treasure lay in this packet. 


112 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

So you will very much oblige me by examining it 
at once. Afterward I hope you will do me the 
honour to share a frugal repast in the shade of my 
arbour.” 

There was no help for it. I obeyed, and I 
need not say that the wonderful packet No. 1 1 6 
contained, like its predecessors, nothing more 
valuable than the dust of centuries. Precisely at 
noon, the old lady came to offer me her arm and 
conduct me formally to a little box-bordered gar- 
den which, with a bit of adjoining meadow, now 
constitutes the sole domain of the Porhoets. 
The table was set out under an arched bower of 
foliage, and through the leaves the sunshine of 
a fine summer’s day dappled the spotless, sweet- 
smelling table-cloth. I had done justice to the 
chicken, the fresh salad, and the bottle of old 
Bordeaux, which made up the menu of the ban- 
quet, when Mile, de Porhoet, who seemed 
charmed with my appetite, turned the conversa- 
tion on to the Laroque family. 

“ I will own,” she said to me, “that I do not 
care for the old buccaneer. When he first came 
here he had a large and favourite ape, which he 
dressed up like a servant, and which he seemed to 
be able to communicate with perfectly. The ani- 
mal was a nuisance to the whole country, and 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

only a man without education or decency could 
have kept it. I agreed when they told me that 
it was an ape, but, as a fact, I have always be- 
lieved that it was a negro, more especially as I 
had always suspected its master of having traf- 
ficked in that commodity in Africa. But M. La- 
roque, the son, was a good sort of man, and quite 
a gentleman. As to the ladies — I refer, of course, 
to Mme. Laroque and her daughter, and in no 
way to the widow Aubry, an extremely common 
person — as to the ladies, I say, they deserve every 
good thing one can say of them.” 

Just then we heard the hoofs of a horse on the 
path that runs outside the garden wall, and the 
next moment some one was knocking sharply at a 
small door near the arbour. 

“Yes,” said Mile, de Porhoet. “Who goes 
there?” 

I looked up, and saw a black plume above the 
top of the wall. 

“ Open,” said a gay voice outside, full of musi- 
cal intonations. “ Open. Tis the fortune of 
France ! ” 

“ What ? Is it you, my darling ? ” said the old 
lady. “ Quick, cousin, run ! ” 

As I opened the door Mervyn rushed between 
my legs, nearly throwing me down. Mile. Mar- 
114 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

guerite was tying up her horse to the fence by his 
reins. 

“ Bon jour, M. Odiot,” she said, without show- 
ing any surprise at finding me there. Throw- 
ing the long folds of her habit over her arm, she 
entered the garden. 

“Welcome this lovely day, my lovely girl!” 
said Mile, de Porhoet. “ Kiss me, dear. You’ve 
been riding too fast, you foolish child. I can tell 
by your colour and the fire that literally seems to 
flash from your eyes. What can I offer you, my 
beauty ? ” 

“ Let me see,” said Mile. Marguerite, glancing 
at the table. “ What have you got ? Has M. 
Odiot eaten up everything? Not that it matters. 
I am thirsty, not hungry.” 

“ I utterly forbid you to drink while you’re so 
hot. But wait a moment ; there are some straw- 
berries left in that bed.” 

“ Strawberries ! O gioia ! ” sang the girl. 
“ Take one of those fig-leaves, M. Odiot, and come 
with me. Quick ! ” 

While I chose the largest of the fig-leaves, 
Mile, de Porhoet half-closed one eye, and fol- 
lowed her favourite with the other, as she walked 
proudly along the sunlit alley. 

“ Look at her, cousin,” she whispered, with 
"5 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

an approving smile; “isn’t she worthy to be one 
of us?” 

Meanwhile, Mile. Marguerite, bending over the 
bed and catching her foot in her train at every 
step, greeted each strawberry she found with a 
little cry of delight. I kept near to her, holding 
out the fig-leaf, in which she put one strawberry 
for every two she ate, to help her to be patient. 
When she was satisfied with the harvest we re- 
turned in triumph to the arbour. The rest of the 
strawberries were sprinkled with sugar, and crushed 
by the prettiest teeth in Brittany with great relish. 

“ Oh, that’s done me good ! ” exclaimed Mile. 
Marguerite, throwing her hat on the seat and lean- 
ing back against the side of the. bower. “And 
now, dearest lady, to complete my happiness, you’re 
going to tell me stories of the old days when you 
were a fair warrior.” 

Mile, de Porhoet, smiling and charmed, needed 
no pressing, and began to tell us some of the 
most striking events of her famous expeditions 
with Lescure and La Rochefoucauld. And on this 
occasion my old friend gave me another proof of 
her nobility of nature, for she paid her tribute to 
the heroes of those troublous wars without dis- 
tinction of party. She spoke of General Hoche, 
whose prisoner she had been, with almost tender 
1 16 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

admiration. Mile. Marguerite listened with an 
impassioned attention which surprised me. At 
one moment, half-buried in her leafy niche, her 
long eyelashes a little lowered, she sat as motion- 
less as a statue ; at another, when the story became 
more exciting, she put her elbows on the table, 
plunged a beautiful hand into the masses of her 
loosened hair, and fixed the lightning of her bril- 
liant eyes eagerly on the old Vendienne. 

Among the sweetest hours of my dull life, I 
shall always count those I spent watching that 
noble face, irradiated by the reflections of the 
glowing sky and the impressions of a valiant 
heart. 

When the story-telling was over, Mile. Mar- 
guerite embraced her old friend, and waking up 
Mervyn, who was asleep at her feet, declared that 
she must return to the chateau. As I was sure it 
would cause her no embarrassment, I had no hesi- 
tation in leaving at the same time. Apart from 
my personal insignificance in the sight of the rich 
heiress, Mile. Laroque was quite at her ease with- 
out a chaperon. Her mother had given her the 
same kind of liberal education she had herself 
received in one of the British colonies. And we 
know that the English method accords to women 
before marriage all that independence which we 
ii 7 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

so wisely give them only when the abuse of it be- 
comes irreparable. So we went out of the garden 
together. I held her stirrup while she mounted, 
and we set off towards the chateau. 

“ Really, M. Odiot,” she said, after a few 
steps, “ I am afraid I spoiled your tete-a-ttte in the 
garden. You seemed to be very happy.” 

“ Certainly, mademoiselle, but as I had already 
been there a long time, I forgive you ; nay, more, 
I thank you.” 

“ You are very good to our poor friend. My 
mother is very grateful to you.” 

“And your mother’s daughter?” I said, 
laughing. 

“ Oh, I’m not so easily impressed. I am 
afraid you will have to wait a little before you get 
any praises from me. I don’t judge people’s ac- 
tions leniently ; there is generally more than one 
explanation of them. I grant that your behav- 
iour towards Mile, de Porhoet looks very well, 

but ” she paused, shook her head, and went 

on in a serious, bitter, and frankly insulting tone, 
“ but I am not at all certain that you are not pay- 
ing court to her in the hope that she may make 
you her heir.” 

I felt myself grow pale. But, seeing how ab- 
surd it would be to answer this young girl angrily, 
1 18 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

I controlled myself, and replied grandly, “ Allow 
me, mademoiselle, to express my sincere pity for 
you.” 

She appeared very much surprised. “Your 
sincere pity ? ” 

“Yes, mademoiselle, the respectful pity to 
which I think you have a right.” 

“ Pity ! ” she said, stopping her horse and slow- 
ly turning her disdainful, half-closed eyes towards 
me. “ I am not so fortunate as to understand you.” 

“ It is really quite simple, mademoiselle ; if 
disillusion, doubt, and callousness are the bitterest 
fruits of long experience, nothing in the world 
deserves pity so much as a heart withered by mis- 
trust before it has even seen life.” 

“ Sir,” said Mile. Laroque, with a strange ve- 
hemence, “you do not know what you are talk- 
ing about. And,” she added more harshly, “you 
forget to whom you are speaking ! ” 

“ That is true, mademoiselle,” I answered 
gently, bowing. “ I may have spoken without 
much knowledge, and perhaps I forgot, to some 
extent, to whom I was speaking. But you set me 
the example.” 

Her eyes fixed on the top of the trees that 
bordered the road, Mile. Marguerite asked, with 
haughty irony : 

119 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“ Must I beg your pardon ?” 

“ Most certainly, mademoiselle,” I replied 
firmly, “if either of us should ask pardon, it is 
you. You are rich, I am poor; you can humble 
yourself. ... I cannot.” 

There was silence. Her tightened lips, her 
quivering nostrils, and the sudden whiteness of 
her forehead, showed what a struggle was going 
on within her. Suddenly lowering her whip as if 
to salute, she said : 

“ Very well, I beg your pardon.” 

At the same moment she gave her horse a 
sharp cut and set off at a gallop, leaving me in 
the middle of the road. 

I have not seen her since. 

July 30th. 

The calculation of probabilities is never more 
misleading than when it has to do with the 
thoughts and feelings of a woman. After the 
painful scene between Mile. Marguerite and my- 
self, I had not been very anxious to encounter her. 
For two days I had not been to the chateau and 
I scarcely expected that the resentment I had 
aroused in this proud nature, would have subsided 
in this short interval. However, about seven 
o’clock on the morning of the day before yester- 
day, when I was working at the open window of 


120 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

my tower, I heard my name called out in a most 
friendly way by the very person of whom I 
thought I had made an enemy. 

“ M. Odiot, are you there?” 

I went to the window and saw Mile. Mar- 
guerite standing in the boat that was kept by the 
bridge. She was holding back the brim of her 
brown straw hat and looking up at my dark tower. 

“ Here I am, mademoiselle,” I said eagerly. 

“ Are you coming out ? ” 

After my well-founded apprehension of the 
last two days, so much condescension made me 
think, to use the accepted formula, I was the dupe 
of a disordered fancy. 

“ I beg your pardon. . . . What did you say?” 

“ Will you come out for a little with Alain, 
Mervyn, and me ? ” 

“With pleasure, mademoiselle.” 

“ Very well — bring your album.” 

I went down quickly and hurried to the bank. 

“ Ah ! ah ! ” said the girl, laughing, “ you’re in 
a good-humour this morning, it seems.” 

I awkwardly murmured something to the 
effect that I was always in a good-humour, but 
Mile. Marguerite scarcely seemed convinced of 
the fact. Then I stepped into the boat and sat 
down at her side. 


1 2 1 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“ Row away, Alain,” she said immediately ; and 
old Alain, who prides himself on being a first-rate 
oarsman, set to work steadily, the long oars mov- 
ing to and fro at his sides, making him look like 
a heavy bird trying to fly. 

“ I was obliged to come and save you from 
your donjon,” said Mile. Marguerite, “ where you 
have been ailing for two whole days.” 

“ Mademoiselle, I assure you that only con- 
sideration for you — respect — fear of . . .” 

“ Respect ! Fear ! Oh, dear, no ! You were 
sulking, that is all. We behave much better than 
you. My mother, for some reason or other, 
thinks you ought to be treated with special con- 
sideration, and has implored me to sacrifice myself 
on the altar of your pride ; so, like an obedient 
daughter, I sacrifice myself.” 

I expressed my gratitude frankly and warmly. 

“ Not to do things by halves,” she continued, 
“ I have determined to give you a treat to your 
taste. So here you have a lovely summer morn- 
ing, woods and glades with all the proper light 
effects, birds warbling in the foliage, a mysterious 
bark gliding on the waves. As this is the sort of 
thing you like, you ought to be satisfied.” 

“ Mademoiselle, I am charmed.” 

“ Well, that’s all right.” 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

For the moment I was fairly contented with 
my fate. The air was sweet with the scent of the 
new-mown hay lying in swaths on either bank ; 
the sombre avenues of the park, dotted with 
patches of sunshine, slipped past us, and from the 
flower-cups came the happy drone of myriads of 
insects feasting on the dew. Opposite me, old 
Alain smiled complacently at me with a protecting 
look at each stroke of his oars, and closer to me 
Mile. Marguerite, dressed in white — contrary to 
her custom — beautiful and fresh and pure as a 
periwinkle blossom, shook with one hand the 
pearls of dew from her veil while she held out the 
other as a bait for Mervyn, who was swimming 
after the boat. I should not have wanted much 
persuasion to go to the end of the world in that 
little white boat. 

As we passed under an arch in the wall that 
bounds the park the young Creole said to me : 

“ You do not ask where I am taking you ?” 

“ No, mademoiselle, I do not. It is all the 
same to me.” 

“ I am taking you into fairyland.” 

“ I thought so, mademoiselle.” 

“ Mile. Hdlouin, more versed in poetic lore 
than I am, has no doubt told you that the thickets 
that cover the country for twenty miles round are 
123 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

the remains of the ancient forest of Brouliande, 
the hunting-ground of those beings of Gael, an- 
cestors of your friend Mile, de Porhoet, and the 
place where Mervyn’s ancestor, wizard though he 
was, came under the magic spells of a damsel 
called Vivien. Now we shall soon be in the cen- 
tre of that forest. And if this is not enough to 
fire your imagination, let me tell you that these 
woods are full of remains of the mysterious relig- 
ion of the Celts ; they are paved with them. In 
every shady nook you picture to yourself a white- 
robed Druid, and in every ray of sunlight the glit- 
ter of a golden sickle. The religion of these old 
bores has left near here, in a solitary and romantic 
place, a monument before which people subject to 
ecstasy are usually in raptures. I thought you 
would like to sketch it, and as it is not easy to 
find, I will show you the way, on condition that 
you suppress the explosions of an enthusiasm I 
cannot share.” 

“Agreed, mademoiselle, I will control myself.” 

“ Yes, please do.” 

“ I promise. And what is the name of this 
monument ?” 

c “I call it a heap of big stones, but the anti- 
quaries have more than one name for it. Some 
call it simply a dolmen , others, more pedantic, say 
124 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

it’s a cromlech , and the country people — I do not 
know why — call it the migourdit .” * 

Meanwhile we glided gently with the current 
of the stream between two strips of wet meadow. 
Here and there, small black cattle with large 
pointed horns turned and looked fiercely at us. 
The valley through which the widening river crept, 
was shut in on both sides by a chain of hills, some 
covered with dry heather and furze, and some with 
green brushwood. Sometimes, at the end of a 
transversal cleft between two hills, we could see 
the crest of a mountain, blue and round in the dis- 
tance. In spite of her indifference, Mile. Mar- 
guerite was careful to draw my attention to all 
the beauties of this austere and peaceful country, 
and careful also, to qualify each remark with some 
ironic comment. 

For a little while a dull, continuous sound had 
told us that we were approaching a waterfall. 
Suddenly the valley narrowed into a wild and 
lonely gorge. On the left stood a high wall of 
rock overgrown with moss ; oaks and firs mixed 
with ivy and straggling brushwood rose one above 
the other in every crevice till they reached the top 
of the cliff, throwing a mysterious shade on to the 


* In the wood of Cadoudal (Morbihan). 

125 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

deeper water at the foot of the rocks. A hundred 
paces in front of us, the water boiled and foamed, 
and then disappeared all at once, and the broken 
line of the stream stood out in a veil of white 
spray, against a distant background of vague 
foliage. On our right, the bank opposite to the 
cliff had only a narrow margin of sloping meadow, 
fringed with the sombre velvet of the wooded 
hills. 

“ Land, Alain,” said the young Creole. Alain 
moored the boat to a willow. 

“Now, sir,” she said, stepping lightly on to 
grass, “ aren’t you overcome ? Aren’t you troubled, 
petrified, thunderstruck? You ought to be, for 
this is supposed to be a very pretty place. I like 
it because it is always fresh and cool. But follow 
me through the woods — if you are not too much 
afraid — and I will show you the famous stones/’V r 

Bright, alert, and gay as I had never seen her 
before, Mile. Marguerite crossed the fields with 
a bounding step, and took a path which led along 
the hills to the forest. Alain and I followed 
in Indian file. After a few minutes’ quick walk- 
ing our guide stopped and seemed to hesitate, and 
looked about her for a moment. Then, deliber- 
ately separating two interlaced branches, she left 
the beaten track and plunged into the under- 
126 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

growth. It was very difficult to make way 
through the thicket of strong young oaks whose 
slanting stems and twisted branches were knotted 
together as closely as Robinson Crusoe’s palisade. 
At least Alain and I, bent double, advanced very 
slowly, catching our heads against something at 
every step, and at each of our clumsy movements 
bringing down a shower of dew upon us. But 
Mile. Marguerite, with the greater dexterity and 
the catlike suppleness of her sex, slipped without 
any apparent effort through the meshes of the 
labyrinth, laughing at our sufferings, and care- 
lessly letting the branches spring back after her 
into our faces. At last we reached a narrow 
glade on the top of the hill. There, not without 
emotion, I saw the dark and monstrous table of 
stone supported by five or six huge blocks half 
sunk in the earth, forming a cavern full of sacred 
horror. At first sight this perfect monument of a 
time almost fabulous, and of a primitive religion, 
has an aspect of eternal verity and of a real mys- 
terious presence, that takes hold of the imagina- 
tion, and fills the mind with awe. 

The sunshine streaming through the leaves 
stole through the interstices in the roughly joined 
blocks, played about the sinister slab, and lent 
an idyllic charm to this barbarous altar. Even 
127 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

Mile. Marguerite seemed pensive and brooding. 
For my part I entered the cavern, and, after ex- 
amining the dolmen thoroughly, set to work to 
sketch it. For ten minutes I had been absorbed 
in this work, forgetting everything that was going 
on about me, when Mile. Marguerite suddenly 
spoke : 

“ Do you want a Velleda to enliven your 
picture ?” 

I looked up. She had wound a wreath of 
oak-leaves round her forehead and stood at the 
head of the dolmen , leaning lightly against a 
sheaf of saplings. In the half-light, under the 
branches, her white dress looked like marble, and 
her eyes shone with strange fire in the shadow of 
the oaken crown. She was beautiful, and I think 
she knew it. I looked at her and found it hard 
to speak. 

“ If I am in the way, I’ll move,” she said. 

“ Oh, no ! please don’t.” 

“Well, make haste; put Mervyn in too. 
He’ll be the Druid and I the Druidess.” 

I was so lucky — thanks to the vagueness of a 
sketch — as to reproduce this poetic vision pretty 
faithfully. Evidently interested, she came and 
looked at the drawing. 

“ It isn’t bad,” she said, laughing, as she threw 
128 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

her crown away. “You must admit that I am 
very good to you.” 

I did. I might even have added, if she had 
asked me, that she was not without a spice of 
coquetry. But without that she would not have 
been a woman. Pe rfection is detesta ble, and 
even goddesses need something besides their 
death less beauty to win love. 

We went back through the tangled under- 
wood to the path in the wood, and thence re- 
turned to the river. 

“ Before we return,” said the young girl, “ I 
want to show you the waterfall, more especially 
as I am looking forward to a little diversion on 
my own account. Come, Mervyn, come along, 
dear dog. Oh, you are lovely ! ” 

We soon reached the bank facing the rocks 
which blocked the bed of the river. The water 
fell from a height of many feet into a large and 
deeply sunk circular basin, which seemed to be 
shut in on all sides by an amphitheatre of vegeta- 
tion, broken by dripping rocks. But there were 
unseen outlets for the overflow of the little lake; 
and the streams so formed reunited a little lower 
down. 

“ It is not exactly a Niagara,” said Mile. Mar- 
guerite, raising her voice against the noise of the 
129 


9 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

falling waters, “ but I have heard connoisseurs 
and artists say that it is rather pretty, neverthe- 
less. Have you admired it? Good! Now I 
hope you’ll bestow any enthusiasm you may have 
left on Mervyn. Here, Mervyn ! ” 

The Newfoundland ran to his mistress, and, 
trembling with impatience, watched her while she 
tied some pebbles into her handkerchief. She 
threw it into the stream a little above the fall, 
and at the same moment Mervyn fell like a block 
into the lower basin and struck out swiftly from 
the edge. The handkerchief followed the cur- 
rent, reached the rocks, danced in an eddy for 
a minute, and then, shooting like an arrow past 
the smooth rock, swept in a mass of foam under 
the eyes of the dog, who seized it dexterously in 
his mouth, after which Mervyn returned proudly 
to the bank, where Mile. Marguerite stood clap- 
ping her hands, 

This feat was performed several times with 
great success. At the sixth repetition, either 
because the dog started too late or because the 
handkerchief was thrown too soon, Mervyn 
missed it. The handkerchief, swept on by the 
eddies from the fall, was carried among some 
thorny brushwood that overhung the water a 
little farther on. Mervyn went to fetch it, but 
130 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

we were very much surprised to see him suddenly 
struggle convulsively, drop his booty, and raise 
his head towards us, howling pitifully. 

“My God! what has happened?” exclaimed 
Mile. Marguerite. 

“ He seems to be caught among the bushes. 
He’ll free himself directly, no doubt.” 

But soon one had to doubt, and even to de- 
spair, of this issue. The network of creepers in 
which the dog had been caught lay directly below 
one of the mouths of the sluice, which poured a 
mass of seething water continuously on Mervyn’s 
head. The poor beast, half-suffocated, ceased to 
make the slightest effort to release himself, and 
his plaintive cries sounded more and more like 
a death-rattle. At this moment Mile. Marguerite 
seized my arm, and whispered almost in my 
ear : 

“ He is lost. It’s no use. . . . Let us go.” 

I looked at her. Grief, pain, and her violent 
effort to control herself had distorted her pale 
features and brought dark circles under her 
eyes. 

“It is impossible,” I said, “to get the boat 
down there ; but if you will allow me, I can swim 
a little, and I’ll go and give a hand to the poor 
fellow.” 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“ No, no ; don’t attempt it. It’s too far. 
And they say it’s very deep and dangerous under 
the fall.” 

“You needn’t fear, mademoiselle; I am very 
cautious.” 

At the same moment I took off my coat and 
went into the water, taking care to keep a good 
distance from the fall. It was very deep, and I 
did not find a footing till I reached the exhausted 
Mervyn. I do not know whether there had been 
an islet here which had dwindled and crumbled 
away, or whether a sudden rising of the river had 
swept away part of the bank, and deposited the 
fragments in this place ; but, whatever the cause, 
there was an accumulated and flourishing mass 
of entangled brushwood and roots under this 
treacherous water. I got my feet on a trunk from 
which the bushes seemed to spring, and man- 
aged to release Mervyn. Feeling himself free, 
he recovered at once, and struck out for the bank, 
leaving me to my fate with all the goodwill im- 
aginable. This was scarcely acting up to the 
chivalrous reputation of his breed, but Mervyn 
has lived a long while among men, and I sup- 
pose has become a bit of a philosopher. But 
when I tried to follow him, I found, to my 
disgust, that, in my turn, I was caught in the 
132 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

nets of the jealous and malignant naiad who 
reigns in the pool. One of my legs was en- 
tangled in the creepers, and I could not free it. 
It is difficult to exert all one’s strength in deep 
water, and on a bed of sticky mud. And besides, 
I was half-blinded by the bubbling spray. In 
short, my situation was becoming awkward. I 
looked towards the bank ; Mile. Marguerite, hold- 
ing to Alain’s arm, hung over the gulf, and 
watched me with mortal anxiety. I told my- 
self that it rested with me to be wept for by 
those bright eyes, and to end a miserable exist- 
ence in an enviable fashion. Then I shook off 
such maudlin fancies vigorously, and freed myself 
by a violent effort. I tied the little handkerchief, 
now in rags, round my neck, and easily regained 
the shore. 

As I landed, Mile. Marguerite offered me her 
hand. It trembled a little, and I was pleased. 

“What rashness! You might have been 
drowned, and for a dog ! ” 

“ It was yours,” I whispered in the same low 
tone she had used to me. 

This speech seemed to annoy her ; she with- 
drew her hand quickly, and turning to Mervyn, 
who lay yawning and drying himself in the sun, 
began to punish him. 


i33 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“ Oh, the stupid ! the big stupid ! ” she said. 
“ What an idiot he is ! ” 

But the water was streaming from my clothes 
on to the grass. I did not quite know what to do 
with myself, till Mile. Marguerite came back, and 
said very kindly : 

“ Take the boat, M. Maxime, and get away as 
fast as you can. You’ll keep warm rowing. I 
will come back with Alain through the wood ; it 
is the shortest way.” 

I agreed to this arrangement, which was in 
every way the best. I said farewell, touched her 
hand for the second time, and got into the boat. 
To my surprise, when I was dressing at home I 
found the little handkerchief still round my neck. 
I had forgotten to restore it to Mile. Marguerite, 
who must have given it up for lost, so I shame- 
lessly determined to keep it as the reward of my 
watery adventure. 

I went to the chateau in the evening. Mile. 
Laroque received me with her habitual air of dis- 
dainful indolence, sombre preoccupation, and em- 
bittered ennui , which was in singular contrast with 
the gracious friendliness and playful vivacity of 
my companion of the morning. 

During dinner, at which M. de Bevallan was 
present, she spoke of our excursion in a manner 
i34 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

that stripped it of all sentiment, and as she went 
on, said some sharp things about lovers of nature, 
and finished with an account of Mervyn’s misad- 
venture, without mentioning my share in it. If, 
as I thought, this was meant as a hint of the line 
I was to take, the young lady had been at needless 
trouble. However that may be, M. de Bdvallan, 
on hearing the story, nearly deafened us with his 
cries of despair. What ! Mile. Marguerite had 
endured such anxiety, the brave Mervyn had been 
in such danger, and he, Bevallan, had not been 
there. Cruel fate ! He would never get over it. 
There was nothing for him to do but hang himself, 
like Crillon. 

“ Well,” said Alain, “ if it depended on me to 
cut him down, I should take my time about it.” 55 * 

The next day did not begin so pleasantly for 
me as its predecessor. In the morning I receiyed 
a letter from Madrid, asking me to inform Mile, 
de Porhoet that her lawsuit was finally lost. Her 
agent also informed me that her opponents would 
not profit by their victory, as the Crown, attracted 
by the millions at stake, claimed to succeed under 
the law by which the property escheats to the 
state. 

After careful consideration, I decided that it 
would be kinder not to let my old friend know of 
135 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

the total destruction of her hopes. I intend, 
therefore, to secure the assistance of her agent in 
Spain ; he will allege further delays, and on my 
side I shall continue my researches among the 
archives, and do my best to preserve the poor 
soul’s cherished delusions to the end. However 
innocent and legitimate this deception might be, 
I could not feel at rest until it had been approved 
by some one whose judgment in such matters I 
could trust. I went to the chateau in the after- 
noon, and made confession to Mme. Laroque, 
who approved of my plan, and commended me 
rather more than the occasion warranted. And to 
my great surprise she finished the interview with 
these words : 

“ I must take this opportunity of telling you, 
M. Odiot, that I am deeply grateful for your de- 
votion to my interests, that each day I appreciate 
your character more truly, and enjoy your company 
more thoroughly. I could wish — you must for- 
give my saying it, as you are scarcely likely to 
share my wish — I could wish that you could 
always remain with us . . . and I humbly pray 
heaven to perform the miracles necessary to bring 
this about ... for I know that only miracles 
can do so.” 

I did not quite grasp the meaning of this 
136 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

language, nor could I explain the sudden emotion 
that shone in the eyes of the excellent lady. I 
acknowledged her kindness properly, and went 
away to indulge my melancholy in the fields. 

By an accident — not purely fortuitous, I must 
admit — I found myself, after an hour’s walking, 
in a deserted valley, and on the brink of the pool 
which had been the scene of my recent prowess. 
The amphitheatre of rocks and greenery which 
surrounds the small lake realizes the very ideal of 
solitude. There you are at the end of the world, 
in a virgin country, in China — where you will ! I 
lay down among the heather, recalling my expe- 
dition of yesterday, one not likely to occur again 
in the course of the longest life. Already I felt 
that if such good fortune should come to me a 
second time, it would not have that charm of sur- 
prise, of peacefulness, and — in one word — of inno- 
cence. I had to own that this fresh romance of 
youth, which gave a perfume to my thoughts, 
could have but one chapter, one page, and that I 
had read it. Yes, this hour, this hour of love, to 
call it by its true name, had been royally sweet, 
because it had not been premeditated, because I 
had not known what it was till it had gone, be- 
cause I had had the rapture, and had been spared 
remorse. Now my conscience was awake. I saw 
i37 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

myself on the verge of an impossible, a ridiculous 
love, and worse, of a culpable passion. Poor and 
disinherited as I am, it is time to keep a strict 
watch over myself. 

I was addressing these warnings to myself in 
this solitary place — any other would have served 
my purpose as well — when the sound of voices 
interrupted my reflections. I rose, and saw a 
company of four or five people who had just 
landed, advancing towards me. First came Mile. 
Marguerite leaning on M. de Bdvallan’s arm ; 
next Mile. Hdlouin and Mme. Aubry, followed 
by Alain and Mervyn. The sound of their ap- 
proach had been drowned in the roar of the water- 
fall ; they were only a few yards off ; there was 
no time for retreat, so I had to resign myself to 
being discovered in the character of the romantic 
recluse. But my presence did not excite any 
particular attention, though I saw a shadow of 
annoyance on Mile. Marguerite’s face, and she 
returned my bow with marked stiffness. 

M. de Bdvallan, standing at the verge of the 
pool, wearied the echoes with the clamour of his 
conventional admiration. “ Delicious ! How pic- 
turesque ! What a feast ! The pen of George 
Sand. . . . The pencil of Salvator Rosa ! ” 

All this was accompanied by violent gestures, 
138 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

by which he appeared to be snatching from these 
great artists, the instruments of their genius. 

At last he became calmer, and asked to be 
shown the dangerous channel where Mervyn had 
nearly been drowned. Again Mile. Marguerite 
related the adventure, and again she suppressed the 
part I had taken in the denouement. With a kind 
of cruelty, evidently levelled at me, she enlarged 
on the cleverness, courage, and presence of mind 
her dog had shown in his trying situation. Ap- 
parently she seemed to think that her transient 
good-humour, and the service I had been so for- 
tunate as to render her, had filled my head with 
some presumptuous notions, which it was neces- 
sary to nip in the bud. 

As Mile. Helouin and Mme. Aubry partic- 
ularly wished to see Mervyn repeat his wonderful 
exploit, his mistress called the Newfoundland, 
and, as before, threw her handkerchief into the 
current. But at the signal the brave Mervyn, in- 
stead of jumping into the lake, rushed up and 
down the bank, barking furiously, lashing about 
with his tail, showing, in fact, the greatest interest 
in the proceedings, but at the same time an excel- 
lent memory. Evidently the head controls the 
heart in this sagacious beast. In vain Mile. Mar- 
guerite, angry and confused, first tried caresses 
i39 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

and then threats to overcome her favourite’s ob- 
stinacy. Nothing could persuade the intelligent 
creature to trust himself again in those dangerous 
waters. After such high-flown announcements, 
Mervyn’s stubborn prudence was really amusing. 
I had a better right to laugh than any one present, 
and I did so without compunction. Besides, the 
merriment soon became general, and in the end 
Mile. Marguerite herself joined in, rather half- 
heartedly. 

“And now,” she said, “ I’ve lost another hand- 
kerchief.” 

The handkerchief, carried along by the eddies, 
had naturally landed among the branches of the 
fatal bush, not far from the further bank. 

“ Rely .upon me, mademoiselle,” cried M. de 
B£vallan. “ In ten minutes you shall have your 
handkerchief, or I shall exist no longer.” 

At this magnanimous declaration I thought 
that Mile. Marguerite looked stealthily at me, as 
much as to say, “You see, there are others who 
are devoted to me ! ” Then she answered M. de 
Bevallan. 

“ For Heaven’s sake, don’t be so foolish ! The 
water is very deep. . . . It is really dangerous.” 

“ It is all the same to me,” said M. de B 6 - 
vallan. “ Have you a knife, Alain ? ” 

140 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“A knife?” said Mile. Marguerite, surprised. 

“Yes, a knife. Please allow me ... I know 
what I mean to do.” 

“ But what do you mean to do with a 
knife?” 

“ I mean to cut a switch,” said M. de Bd- 
vallan. 

The girl looked at him gravely. 

“ I thought,” she murmured, “ that you were 
going to swim for it.” 

“To swim!” said M. de Bevallan; “excuse 
me, mademoiselle. . . . Firstly, I am not in 
swimming costume ; next, I must admit that 
I cannot swim.” 

“ If you cannot swim,” she said dryly, “ the 
question of costume is not important.” 

“ You are quite right,” said M. de Bdvallan, 
with amusing coolness ; “ but you are not particu- 
larly anxious that I should drown myself, are 
you? You want your handkerchief, that is the 
point. When I have got it, you will be satis- 
fied. Isn’t that so ?” 

“Well, go and cut your switch,” she said, sit- 
ting down resignedly. 

M. de Bevallan is not easily disconcerted. 
He disappeared into the nearest thicket, and soon 
we heard the branches crack. He came back 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

armed with a long switch from a nut-tree, and 
proceeded to strip the leaves off. 

“ Do you think you’ll reach the other side 
with that stick?” asked Mile. Marguerite, who 
was beginning to be amused. 

“ Allow me to manage it my own way. That 
is all I ask,” said the imperturbable gentleman. 

We left him alone. He finished his switch, 
and then set out for the boat. We at last under- 
stood that he meant to cross the river in the boat, 
to land above the waterfall, and to harpoon the 
handkerchief, which he could easily do from the 
bank. At this discovery there was an indignant 
outcry from the ladies, who, as we all know, are 
extremely fond of dangerous adventures — in 
which they are not themselves concerned. 

“A pretty contrivance, M. de Bevallan. 
Aren’t you ashamed of yourself ? ” 

“ Tu-tu, ladies ! Remember Columbus and 
the egg. The idea is everything, you know.” 

Contrary to our expectation, this apparently 
harmless expedition was not to be carried through 
without some emotions, and some risks, for 
M. de Bevallan, instead of making for the bank 
immediately opposite the little bay, where the 
boat had been moored, unluckily decided to land 
nearer the cataract. He pushed the boat into the 
142 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

middle of the stream and let it drift for a mo- 
ment, till he saw that as the river approached the 
fall, its pace increased with alarming rapidity. 
We appreciated the danger when we saw him put 
the boat across the current, and begin to row 
with feverish energy. For a few seconds he 
struggled with doubtful success. But, little by 
little, he got nearer to the bank, though the 
stream still swept him fiercely towards the cata- 
ract, which thundered ominously in his ears. 
He was only a few feet from it, when a su- 
preme effort brought him near enough to the 
shore to put him out of danger. With a vigor- 
ous spring he leaped on to the slope of the bank, 
sending the boat out among the rocks, where it 
was at once overturned. It presently floated into 
the pool keel upward. V While the danger lasted, 
our only feeling was one of keen anxiety, but 
when it was over, the contrast between the comic 
denouement and its hero’s usual coolness and self- 
confidence, could not fail to tickle our sense of 
humour. Besides, laughter is a natural relief 
when a danger is happily past. Directly we saw 
that M. de Bdvallan was out of the boat, we all 
gave ourselves up to unrestrained merriment. I 
should say, that at this moment his bad luck was 
completed by a truly distressing detail. The 
M3 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

bank on which he had jumped sloped sharply and 
was very wet. His feet had scarcely touched it 
when he fell backwards. Fortunately there were 
some strong branches within his reach. He hung 
on to them desperately, his legs beating the shal- 
low water like two angry oars. As there was no 
danger, his situation became purely ridiculous, 
and I suppose that this thought made him strug- 
gle so frantically and awkwardly, that his efforts 
defeated their purpose. He succeeded, however, 
in raising himself and getting another footing on 
the slope. Then, all of a sudden, we saw him 
slide down again, tearing the bushes and brush- 
wood as he went, and renewing his wild panto- 
mime in the water in evident desperation. It 
was irresistible. Never, I believe, had Mile. 
Marguerite been at such an entertainment. She 
had utterly lost all care for her dignity. Like 
some mirthful Bacchante, she filled all the grove 
with bursts of almost convulsive gaiety. Be- 
tween her shouts of laughter she clapped her 
hands and called out in a half-suffocated voice : 

“ Bravo ! bravo ! M. de Bdvallan! Very pretty ! 
Delicious ! Picturesque ! Salvator Rosa ! ” 

At last M. de Bevallan succeeded in dragging 
himself to terra firma. Then, turning to the 
ladies, he made them a speech which the noise of 
144 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

the waterfall prevented us from hearing distinctly ; 
but, from his animated gestures, the illustrative 
movements of his arms, and his air of forced good- 
humour, we understood that he was giving us a 
reasoned explanation of his disaster. 

“ Yes, yes,” replied Mile. Marguerite, continu- 
ing to laugh with a woman’s implacable barbarity, 
“ it was a great success. I congratulate you ! ” 

When she was a little more serious, she asked 
me how we should recover the capsized boat, 
which, by-the-bye, was the best we had. I prom- 
ised to bring some men the next day, and superin- 
tend the rescue. Then we struck across the fields 
towards the chateau. M. de Bdvallan, not being 
in swimming costume, could not rejoin us. With 
a melancholy air he disappeared behind the rocks 
above the farther bank. 


August 20th. 

At last this extraordinary girl has revealed the 
secret of her stormy soul to me. Would that she 
had preserved it forever ! 

During the day that followed the scenes I have 
just described, Mile. Marguerite, as if ashamed of 
the impulses of youthful frankness to which she 
had yielded, wrapped herself more closely than 
ever in her veil of mournful pride, disdain, and 
10 i45 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

mistrust. In the midst of the noisy pleasures, the 
fites, and dances that succeeded one another, she 
passed like a ghost, indifferent, icy, and sometimes 
angry. 

Her irony vented itself with inconceivable bit- 
terness, sometimes on the purest pleasures of the 
mind, those that come from contemplation and 
study, sometimes on the noblest and most sacred 
sentiments. If an instance of courage or virtue 
was mentioned in her presence, she examined it 
minutely in search of its selfish motive ; or if by 
chance one burned the smallest grain of incense 
on the altar of art, she extinguished it with a dis- 
dainful wave of her hand. With her short, abrupt, 
and terrible laugh, like the mocking of a fallen 
angel, she seemed determined to blight (wherever 
she saw a trace of them) the most generous facul- 
ties of the human soul — enthusiasm and passion. 
I noticed that this strange spirit of disparagement 
took on a special character of persecution — positive 
hostility — when directed against me. I did not 
understand, and even now I do not quite under- 
stand, why I have attracted these particular atten- 
tions. True, I carry in my heart the worship* of 
things ideal and eternal, which only death can tear 
from me (great God, what would be left me if I 
had not that !) ; but I am not given to public 
146 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

ecstasies, and my admiration, like my love, will 
never be obtrusive. In vain I maintained more 
scrupulously than ever the modesty which springs 
from real feeling. I gained nothing by it. The 
most romantic fancies were attributed to me just 
for the pleasure of combating them, and perpetu- 
ally some kind of grotesque harp was thrust into 
my hands, solely for the amusement of breaking 
its strings. 

Although this open warfare against anything 
higher than the material interests and sordid reali- 
ties of life, was not a new trait in Mile. Mar- 
guerite’s character, it had been suddenly exagger- 
ated and embittered to the point of wounding the 
hearts most devoted to this young girl. One day 
Mile, de Porhoet, weary of this incessant mocking, 
said to her in my presence : 

“ My darling, for some time past you have 
been possessed by a devil which you would do 
well to cast out as soon as possible, or you will 
finish by making up a trio with Mme. Aubry 
and Mme. de Saint-Cast. For my part, I do not 
pride myself on being, or ever having been, par- 
ticularly romantic, but I like to think that there 
are still some people in the world who are capable 
of generous sentiments ; I believe in disinterested- 
ness, if only in my own, and I even believe in 
i47 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

heroism, because I have known heroes. More, I 
love to hear the little birds singing under my 
arbour, and I like to build my cathedral in the 
drifting clouds. All this may sound very ridicu- 
lous, my dear, but I venture to remind you that 
these illusions are the riches of the poor, that 
M. Odiot and I have no other kind of wealth, 
and that we are so singular as not to com- 
plain.” 

On another occasion, when I had just received 
Mile. Marguerite’s sarcasm with my usual impassi- 
bility, her mother drew me aside. 

“ M. Maxime,” she said, “ my daughter teases 
you a little, but I hope you will excuse her. You 
must have noticed that she has changed very 
much lately.” 

“Your daughter seems to be more preoccu- 
pied than usual.” 

“ And not without good reason ; she is about 
to come to a very serious decision, and at such a 
moment young girls are apt to be capricious.” 

I bowed and said nothing. 

“You are now a friend of the family,” con- 
tinued Mme. Laroque, “and as such I ask you to 
give me your opinion of M. de Bevallan.” 

“ I believe, madame, that M. de Bevallan has 
a very handsome fortune — not so large as yours, 
148 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

but undeniably handsome — about a hundred and 
fifty thousand francs a year ! ” 

“Yes, but what do you think of him per- 
sonally, and of his character ? ” 

“ M. de Bevallan is what the world calls a per- 
fect gentleman. He has wit ; he is considered an 
honourable man.” 

“ But do you think he will make my daughter 
happy ? ” 

“ I do not think he will make her unhappy. 
He is not unkind.” 

“ What do you think I ought to do ? I am 
not entirely satisfied with him . . . but he is the 
only one Marguerite at all cares for . . . and 
there are so few men with a hundred thousand 
francs a year. You can understand that my 
daughter — in her position — has had plenty of 
offers. For the last two or three years we have 
been literally besieged. . . . Well, it is time we 
decided. ... I am not strong. ... I may go 
any day. . . . My daughter would be unprotected. 
Here is an unexceptionable suitor whom the 
world will certainly approve — it is my duty to 
welcome him. Already people say that I have 
filled my daughter’s head with romantic notions — 
which is not the truth. She has her own ideas. 
Now, what do you advise me to do ?” 

149 


1 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“ May I ask what is Mile, de Porhoet’s 
opinion ? She is a lady of great judgment and 
experience, and besides, entirely devoted to you.” 

“ Oh, if I listened to Mile, de Porhoet I 
should send M. de Bdvallan about his business. 
But it is all very well for Mile, de Porhoet to 
talk. When he’s gone, she won’t marry my 
daughter for me.” 

“ But, madame, from the monetary point of 
view, M. de Bdvallan is certainly a fine match. I 
do not dispute it for a moment, and if you stand 
out for a hundred thousand francs a year.” 

“ But, my dear sir, I care no more for a hun- 
dred thousand francs than for a hundred pence ! 
However, I am not talking of myself, but of my 
daughter. Well, I can’t let her marry a mason, 
can I ? I should have rather liked to be the wife 
of a mason, but it does not follow that what would 
have made me happy would make her so. I 
ought, in marrying her, to be guided by received 
opinion, not merely by my own.” 

“ Well, then, madame, if this marriage suits 
you, and suits your daughter equally well . . .” 

“ Ah, no ! ... it does not suit me . . . nor 
does it suit my daughter any better. It is a mar- 
riage ... to speak plainly, it is un mariage de 
convenances 

150 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“ Am I to understand that it is quite settled ?” 

“No, or I should scarcely ask your advice. If 
it were, my daughter would be more at ease. Her 
misgivings disturb her, and then . . 

Mme. Laroque sank back into the shadow of 
the hood over her chair and added : 

“ Have you any idea of what is going on in 
that unfortunate head ?” 

“ None, madame.” 

She fixed her sparkling eyes on me for a mo- 
ment, sighed deeply, and said, gently and sadly : 

“You may go . . . I won’t detain you any 
longer.” \ 

The confidence with which I had just been 
honoured, had not surprised me much. For some 
time it had been evident that Mile. Marguerite 
reserved for M. de Bevallan whatever sympathy 
she had left for humanity. But she seemed to 
show rather a friendly preference than an impas- 
sioned tenderness. And I ought to say that the 
preference was quite intelligible. I have never 
liked M. de Bdvallan, and in these pages I have, 
in spite of myself, given a caricature rather than a 
portrait of him, but I admit that he combines 
most of the qualities and defects that are popular 
with women. He is absolutely devoid of mod- 
esty, which is a great advantage, as women do not 

151 


/ 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

like it. He has the cool, mocking, and witty 
assurance which nothing can daunt, which easily 
daunts others, and which gives to its possessor a 
kind of domination and a factitious superiority. 
His tall figure, his bold features, his skill in ath- 
letic exercises, his reputation as a sportsman, give 
him a manly authority which impresses the timid 
sex. And he has an air of daring, enterprise, and 
conquest which attracts and troubles women, and 
fills their souls with secret ardour. Such advan- 
tages, it is true, are, as a rule, chiefly impressive to 
vulgar natures ; but though, as usual, I had at first 
been tempted to put Mile. Marguerite’s nature on 
a level with her beauty, she had for some time 
past seemed to make a positive parade of very 
mediocre sentiments, and I believed she was 
capable of yielding without resistance as without 
enthusiasm, and with the passive coldness of a 
lifeless imagination, to the charms of a common- 
place lady-killer, and, later, to the yoke of a 
respectable marriage. 

All this made it necessary for me to accept 
the inevitable, and I did so more easily than I 
should have thought possible a month ago. For 
I had summoned all my courage to combat the 
first temptations of a love, equally condemned by 
good sense and by honour. And she who had 
152 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

unwittingly imposed this combat on me, had also 
unwittingly powerfully helped me in my resist- 
ance. If she could not hide her beauty from me, 
she also unveiled her soul, and mine had recoiled. 
Small loss, no doubt, for the young millionaire, 
but a good thing for me. 

Meanwhile I had to go to Paris, partly on 
Mme. Laroque’s business and partly on my own. 
I returned two days ago, and as I arrived at the 
chateau I was told that old M. Laroque had 
repeatedly asked for me since the morning. I 
hurried to his apartment. A smile flickered 
across his withered cheeks as he saw me. He 
looked at me with an expression of malignant joy 
and secret triumph ; then he said, in his dull, hol- 
low voice : 

“M. de Saint-Cast is dead.” 

This news, which the strange old man had 
wanted to tell me himself, was correct. On the 
previous night poor General de Saint-Cast had 
had a stroke of apoplexy, and an hour later had 
been snatched from the life of wealth and luxury 
which he owed to his wife. Directly the news 
came to the chateau, Mme. Aubry had started off 
to her friend, and the two had, as Dr. Desmarets 
told us, passed the day chanting a sort of litany of 
original and piquant ideas on the subject of death 
153 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

— the swiftness with which it strikes its prey, the 
impossibility of preventing or guarding against it, 
the futility of regrets, which cannot bring back the 
departed, the consoling effects of time, etc., etc. 

After which they sat down to dinner, and 
gradually recovered their spirits. “ Madame,” 
said Mme. Aubry, “you must eat, you must keep 
yourself alive. It is our duty and the will of 
God.” 

At dessert Mme. de Saint-Cast had a bottle of 
the poor general’s favourite Spanish wine, and 
begged Mme. Aubry to taste it for his sake. But, 
as Mme. Aubry firmly refused to be the only one 
to partake of it, Mme. de Saint-Cast allowed her- 
self to be persuaded that God also wished her to 
have a glass of Spanish wine and a crust of bread. 
The general’s health was not drunk. Early yester- 
day morning, Mme. Laroque and her daughter, 
both in mourning, took their places in the car- 
riage. I accompanied them. About ten o’clock 
we were at the little town. While I attended the 
general’s funeral, the ladies joined the widow’s 
circle of official sympathizers. After the service 
I returned to the house, and with some other 
friends I was introduced into the famous drawing- 
room, the furniture of which had cost fifteen 
thousand francs. In the funereal half-light I dis- 
154 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

tinguished the inconsolable Mme. de Saint-Cast 
sitting on a twelve-hundred-franc sofa, enveloped 
in crape, the price of which we were told before 
long. At her side was Mme. Aubry, an image of 
physical and moral prostration. Half a dozen 
friends and relatives completed this doleful group. 
As we took up our positions in line at the farther 
end of the salon , there was a sound of shuffling 
feet and some cracking of the parquet, then 
gloomy silence fell again on this mausoleum. 
Only from time to time a lamentable sigh, faith- 
fully echoed by Mme. Aubry, rose from the 
sofa. 

At last a young man appeared. He had lin- 
gered in the street to finish the cigar he had lighted 
as he left the cemetery. As he slipped discreetly 
into our ranks Mme. de Saint-Cast perceived him. 

“Is that you, Arthur?” she said in a lugu- 
brious voice. 

“Yes, aunt,” said the young man, advancing 
in front of the line. 

“Well,” continued the widow, in the same 
plaintive drawl, “ is it over ? ” 

“Yes, aunt,” said Arthur, in curt, deliberate 
accents. He seemed to be a young man who was 
perfectly satisfied with himself. 

There was a pause, after which Mme. de Saint- 
155 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

Cast drew from the depths of her expiring soul 
this new series of questions : 

“ Did it go off well ?” 

“ Very well, aunt, very well.” 

“ Were there many people ? ” 

“The whole town, aunt, the whole town.” 

“ The military ? ” 

“ Yes, aunt, the whole garrison, and the band.” 

Mme. de Saint-Cast groaned, and added : 

“ The fire brigade ? ” 

“The fire brigade too, aunt — certainly.” 

I do not quite see why this last detail should 
have particularly affected Mme. de Saint-Cast, but 
she could not resist it. A sudden swoon, accom- 
panied by infantile wailings, summoned all the 
resources of feminine sensibility to her aid, and 
gave us the opportunity of slipping away. I was 
glad of it. I could not bear to see this ridiculous 
vixen performing her hypocritical mummeries 
over the tomb of the weak, but good and loyal 
fellow, whose life she had embittered, and whose 
end she had probably hastened. 

A few moments later, Mme. Laroque asked 
me to accompany her to the Langoat farm, five or 
six leagues farther on towards the coast. She 
intended to dine there with her daughter. The 
farmer’s wife, who had been Mile. Marguerite’s 
156 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

nurse, was ill, and the ladies had for some time 
meant to give her this proof of their interest in 
her welfare. We started at two o clock in the 
afternoon. It was one of the hottest days of this 
hot summer. Through the open windows of the 
carriage, the heavy, burning gusts which rose in 
waves from the parched lande under the torrid 
sky, swept across us. 

The conversation suffered from our oppression. 
Mme. Laroque, who declared that she was in para- 
dise, had at last thrown off her furs and remained 
sunk in a gentle ecstasy. Mile. Marguerite fanned 
herself with Spanish gravity. While we slowly 
climbed the interminable hills, we saw the calcined 
rocks swarming with legions of silver-coated liz- 
ards, and heard the continuous crackling of the 
furze opening its ripe pods to the sun. 

In the middle of one of our laborious ascents 
a voice suddenly called out from the side of the 
road : 

“ Stop, if you please.” 

At the same time a big girl with bare legs, 
holding a distaff in her hand, and wearing the an- 
cient costume and ducal coif of the peasants of 
this country, leaped quickly across the ditch, knock- 
ing over as she came along some of the sheep she 
was tending. She perched herself with a kind of 
i57 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

grace on the carriage-step, and stood before us 
with her brown, self-possessed, and smiling face 
framed in the window. 

“ Pardon, ladies,” she said in the quick, melo- 
dious tones of her country, “ will you be so kind 
as to read this to me ? ” 

She took from her bodice a letter folded in the 
ancient fashion. 

“ Read it, M. Odiot,” said Mme. Laroque, 
laughing, “ and read it aloud, if necessary.” 

It was a love-letter, addressed very carefully to 
Mile. Christine Ogadec, ’s Farm, in the com- 
mune of , near . It was written by an 

awkward but sincere hand. The date showed that 
Mile. Christine had received it two or three weeks 
ago. Not being able to read, and fearing to trust 
her secret to the ill-nature of her associates, the 
poor girl had kept the letter in the hope that some 
passing stranger, at once good-natured and edu- 
cated, would interpret the mystery that had been 
burning in her bosom for more than a fortnight. 
Her blue, wide-opened eyes were fixed on me with 
an air of ineffable satisfaction as I laboriously read 
the sloping lines which conveyed this message : 

“ Mademoiselle, this is to tell you that my in- 
tentions have not changed since the day we spoke 
on the lande after vespers, and that I am anxious 
158 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

about yours. My heart is all yours, mademoiselle, 
and I wish yours to be all mine ; and if it is you 
may be sure and certain that no one alive is hap- 
pier on earth or in heaven than your friend — who 
does not put his name here, but you know quite 
well who he is, mademoiselle.” 

“And do you know, Mile. Christine?” I said, 
returning the letter. 

“Very likely I do,” she said, with a smile that 
showed her white teeth, while she gravely nodded, 
her young face radiant with happiness. “Thank 
you, ladies and gentleman ! ” 

She jumped off the step and soon disappeared 
among the bushes, chanting as she went the deep 
and joyful notes of some Bretonne ballad. 

Mme. Laroque had followed with evident rap- 
ture all the details of this pastoral scene, which 
harmonized deliciously with her favourite fan- 
cies. She smiled and dreamed at the vision of 
this happy, barefooted girl as if she were under a 
spell. However, when Mile. Ogadec was out of 
sight, a strange notion came into Mme. Laroque’s 
head. After all, she thought, it would not have 
been a bad thing to have given the girl a five-franc 
piece — in addition to her admiration. 

“ Call her back, Alain,” she cried. 

“ But, mother, why ? ” said Mile. Marguerite 
159 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

quickly, though so far she had apparently taken no 
notice of the incident. 

“ My dear child, perhaps this girl does not 
thoroughly understand how much I should enjoy, 
and how much she ought to enjoy, running about 
barefooted in the dust. It would be nice, at any 
rate, to leave her some little souvenir.” 

“ Money ! ” replied Mile. Marguerite. “ Oh, 
mother, don’t ! Don’t soil her happiness with 
money.” 

This delicate sentiment — which, by the way, 
poor Christine might not have appreciated — was 
astonishing enough in the mouth of Mile. Mar- 
guerite, who did not, as a rule, pride herself on 
such subtlety. Indeed, I thought she was joking, 
though she showed no signs of amusement. How- 
ever that may be, her mother took the caprice 
very seriously. It was decided enthusiastically to 
leave this idyll to innocence and bare feet. 

After this pretty episode Mme. Laroque re- 
lapsed into her smiling ecstasy, and Mile. Mar- 
guerite fanned herself more seriously than ever. 
An hour later we reached our destination. Like 
most of the farms in this country, where the up- 
lands and plateaux are the sterile lande, the farm 
of Langoat lies in the hollow of a valley, with 
a water-course running through it. 

160 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

The farmer’s wife was better, and at once set 
to work preparing dinner, the chief elements of 
which we had been careful to bring with us. It 
was served on the natural lawn of a meadow, 
under the shade of an enormous chestnut. Mme. 
Laroque, though sitting in a most uncomfortable 
attitude, on one of the cushions from the carriage, 
seemed perfectly radiant. She said our party re- 
minded her of the groups of reapers we see 
crowding under the shade of a hedge, whose rus- 
tic feasts she had always envied. As for me, I 
might perhaps at another time have found a sin- 
gular sweetness in the close and easy intimacy, 
which an outdoor meal of this kind usually cre- 
ates among the guests. But, with a painful feel- 
ing of constraint, I thrust away an enjoyment 
that might inflict regret, and the bread of this 
transient fraternity was bitter in my mouth. 

“ Have you ever been up there?” said Mme. 
Laroque to me as we finished dinner. She indi- 
cated the top of a lofty hill which commanded 
the meadow we were in. 

“ No, madame.” 

“ Oh, but you should go. You get such a 
lovely view. You must see it . . . Marguerite 
will take you while they’re putting the horses in. 
Won’t you ? ” 

11 161 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“I, mother? I have only been there once, 
and it was a long time ago . . . However, I 
daresay I can find the way. Come, M. Odiot, 
and be prepared for a stiff climb.” 

Mile. Marguerite and I started at once to 
climb a very steep path which wound along the 
side of the mountain, passing in some places 
through clumps of trees. The girl stopped from 
time to time in her swift and easy ascent to see if 
I were following her, and, panting a little, smiled 
at me without speaking. On reaching the bare 
heath which formed the plateau, I saw, a short 
way off, a village church, the lines of its little 
steeple sharply defined against the sky. 

“ That’s where it is,” said my young guide, 
quickening her pace. 

Beyond the church was a cemetery shut in by 
walls. She opened the gate, and made her way 
with difficulty through the tall grass and trailing 
brambles, which choked the place of rest, towards 
a kind of semicircular perron which stood at the 
farther end. Two or three rough steps, defaced 
by time and rather strangely ornamented with 
massive balls, led to a narrow platform raised to 
the level of the wall. A granite cross stood in 
the centre of the semicircle. 

Mile. Marguerite had scarcely reached the 
162 







mm. 


wm 




































































































The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

platform and looked into the space that opened 
before her, when I saw her place her hand before 
her eyes as if she were suddenly dazzled. I has- 
tened to join her. The beautiful day, nearing to 
its end, lighted with its last splendours a scene so 
vast, so strange, and so sublime, that I shall never 
forget it. 

Facing us, and at a great depth below the 
platform, extended, farther than we could see, a 
sort of marsh studded with shining patches, and 
looking like a region slowly emerging from a 
deluge. This great bay stretched from under our 
feet to the heart of the jagged mountains. On 
the banks of mud and sand which separated the 
shifting lagoons, a growth of reeds and sea plants 
tinged with a thousand shades, sombre but dis- 
tinct, contrasted sharply with the gleaming sur- 
faces of the waters. At each of its rapid strides 
to the horizon, the sun lit up or darkened some 
of the many lakes which checkered the half-dried 
gulf. He seemed to take in turn from his celes- 
tial casket the most precious substances, — silver 
and gold, ruby and diamond — and make them 
flash on each point of this gorgeous plain. As 
the planet neared the end of his career, a strip 
of undulating mist at the farther limit of the 
marshes, reddened all at once with the glare of a 
163 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

conflagration, and for a moment, kept the radiant 
transparency of a cloud furrowed by lightning. 
I was absorbed in the contemplation of a pic- 
ture so full of divine grandeur, and enriched as 
with another ray of glory by the great memory 
of Caesar, when a low, half -stifled voice mur- 
mured : 

“ Oh, how beautiful it is ! ” 

I had not expected this sympathetic outburst 
from my companion. I turned eagerly towards 
her with a surprise that was not lessened, when the 
emotion in her face, and the slight trembling of 
her lips, had convinced me of the profound sincer- 
ity of her admiration. 

“You admit that it is beautiful?” I said 
to her. 

She shook her head ; but at the same moment 
two tears fell slowly from her great eyes. She 
felt them rolling down her cheeks, made a gesture 
of annoyance, and then throwing herself suddenly 
on the granite cross, on the base of which she was 
standing, she embraced it with both hands, pressed 
her head close against the stone, and sobbed 
convulsively. 

I did not think it right to say a word that 
might trouble the course of this sudden emotion, 
and I turned reverently away. After a moment, 
164 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

seeing her raise her forehead, and hastily replace 
her loosened hair, I came nearer. 

“ I am ashamed of myself,” she murmured. 

“You have more reason to rejoice. Believe 
me, you must give up trying to destroy the source 
of those tears ; it is holy. Besides, you will never 
succeed.” 

“ I must,” said the girl desperately. “ See, it 
is done ! This weakness took me by surprise. I 
want to hate everything that is good and beau- 
tiful.” 

“ In God’s name, why?” 

“ Because I am beautiful, and I can never be 
loved.” 

Then, as a long-repressed torrent bursts its 
barriers at last, she continued, with extraordinary 
energy : 

“ It is true.” 

She put her hand on her heaving bosom. 

“ God had put into this heart all the qualities 
that I ridicule, that I blaspheme every hour of 
the day. But when he condemned me to be rich, 
he withdrew with one hand all that he had lavished 
with the other. What is the good of my beauty ? 
What is the good of the devotion, tenderness, and 
enthusiasm which I feel burning within me ? 
These are not the charms which make so many 
165 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

cowards weary me with their homage. I see it — 
I know it — I know it too well. And if ever 
some disinterested, generous, and heroic soul loved 
me for what I am, and not for what I have . . . 
I should never know . . . never believe it. Eter- 
nal mistrust ! That is my sentence — that is my 
torture. So I have decided ... I will never 
love. I will never pour into some vile, worthless, 
and venal heart the pure passion which is burning 
in mine. My soul will die virgin in my bosom. 
Well, I am resigned, but — everything that is beau- 
tiful, everything that sets me dreaming, everything 
that speaks to me of realms forbidden, everything 
that stirs these vain fires in me — I thrust it away, 
I hate it, I will have nothing to do with it.” 

She stopped, trembling ; then, in a lower tone, 
she said : 

“ Monsieur, I did not seek this opportunity. 
I have not chosen my words ... I did not mean 
to tell you, but I have spoken . . . you know all, 
and if at any time I have wounded your feelings, 
I think you will forgive me now.” 

She held out her hand. When my lips touched 
that soft hand, still wet with tears, a mortal lan- 
gour stole through my veins. Marguerite turned 
her head away, looked into the sombre sky, and 
then slowly descended the steps. 

1 66 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“ Let us go,” she said. 

Another road, longer, but easier than the steep 
ascent of the mountain, brought us into the farm- 
yard. Neither of us spoke a single word the 
whole way. What could I have said, I who was 
more to be suspected than any other ? I felt that 
every word from my overcharged heart would 
separate me still further from this stormy, but 
adorable soul. 

Night had fallen, and hid from every one the 
signs of our common emotion. We drove away. 
After telling us again how much she had enjoyed 
her day, Mme. Laroque gave herself up to dream- 
ing about it. Mile. Marguerite, invisible and mo- 
tionless in the deep shadow, seemed also to be 
sleeping ; but when a bend in the road caused a 
ray of pale light to fall upon her, the fixed and 
open eyes showed that she was wakeful and silent, 
beset by the thought that caused her despair. I 
can scarcely say what I felt. A strange sensation 
of deep joy and deep bitterness possessed me en- 
tirely. I yielded to it as one sometimes yields 
consciously to a dream the charm of which we are 
not strong enough to resist. 

We reached home about midnight. 

I got down at the beginning of the avenue, 
and took the short way through the park to my 
167 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

quarters. Entering a dim alley, I heard a faint 
sound of voices and approaching footsteps, and 
saw vaguely in the darkness two shadowy figures. 
It was late enough to justify me in stepping into 
a clump of trees, to watch these nocturnal wan- 
derers. They passed slowly in front of me. I 
recognised Mile. Hdlouin ; she was leaning on M. 
de Bdvallan’s arm. At this moment the sound of 
the carriage alarmed them ; they shook hands and 
separated hurriedly, Mile. Hdlouin going towards 
the chateau, the other to the woods. 

In my own room, fresh from my adventure, I 
asked myself indignantly whether I was to allow 
M. de Bdvallan to carry on his double love affair 
uninterrupted, and to let him find a fiancee and a 
mistress in the same house. ( I am too much a 
man of my age and time to feel the Puritan’s hor- 
ror of certain weaknesses, and I am not hypocrite 
enough to affect what I do not feel. But I be- 
lieve that the morality which is easiest and most 
indulgent in this respect, still demands some de- 
gree of dignity, self-respect, and delicacy. Even 
in these devious ways a man must walk straight to 
some extent. The real excuse of love is that it is 
love. But M. de Bdvallan’s catholic tendernesses 
exclude all possibility of self-forgetful passion. 
Such love-affairs are not even sins ; they are some- 
168 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

thing altogether lower in the moral scale ; they are 
but the calculations and the wagers of brutalized 
horse-dealers. 

The various incidents of this evening, com- 
bined to convince me, that this man was utterly 
unworthy of the hand and heart he dared to covet. 
Such a union would be monstrous. But I saw at 
once, that I should not be able to prevent it by 
using the weapons that chance had put into my 
hands. The best of objects does not justify base 
methods, and nothing can excuse the informer. 
This marriage will take place, (and heaven will per- 



mit' one of its noblest creatures 


arms of a cold-hearted libertinej It will permit 
that profanation. Alas, it allows so many others ! 

I tried to imagine how this young girl could 
have chosen this man, by what process of false 
reasoning she had come to prefer him to all others. 
I think I have guessed. M. de B£vallan is very 
rich ; he brings a fortune nearly equal to the one 
he acquires. That is a kind of guarantee ; he 
could do without this additional wealth ; he is 
assumed to be more disinterested than others, 
because he is better off. 

How foolish an argument ! What a terrible 
mistake to estimate people’s venality by the amount 
of their wealth ! In nine cases out of ten, opu- 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

lence increases greed ! The most self-seeking are 
not the poorest ! 

Was there, then, no hope that Marguerite 
would see the worthlessness of her choice, no hope 
that her own heart would give her the counsel I 
could not suggest ? Might not a new, unlooked- 
for feeling arise in her heart, and, breathing on the 
vain resolutions of reason, destroy them ? Was 
not this feeling already born, indeed, and had I 
not received irrefutable proofs of it ? The strange 
caprices, the humiliations, struggles, and tears of 
which I had been so long the object, or the wit- 
ness, proclaimed beyond doubt a reason that wa- 
vered, not mistress of itself. I had seen enough 
of life, to know that a scene like that of which 
chance had this evening made me the confidant, 
and almost the accomplice, does not, however 
spontaneous it may seem, occur in an atmosphere 
of indifference. Such emotions, such shocks, prove 
that there are two souls already shaken by the 
same storm, or about to be so shaken. 

But if it were true, if she loved me, as too cer- 
tainly I loved her, I might say of that love what 
she had said of her beauty: “ What is the good of 
it?” For I could never hope that it would be 
strong enough to triumph over the eternal mis- 
trust, which is at once the defect, and quality, of 
170 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

that noble girl. My character, I dare say it, re- 
sents the outrage of this mistrust ; but my situa- 
tion, more than that of any other, is calculated to 
rouse it. What miracle is to bridge the abyss 
between these suspicions, and the reserve they 
force upon me ? 

Finally, granting the miracle, if she offered me 
the hand for which I would give my life, but for 
which I will never ask, would our union be 
happy ? Should I not have to fear, early or late, 
in this restless imagination, the slow awakening of 
a half-stifled mistrust ? Could I, in the midst of 
wealth not mine, guard myself against misgivings? 
Could I really be happy in a love that is sullied 
by being a benefit as well ? Our part as the pro- 
tector of women is so strictly laid upon us by all 
sentiments of honour, that it cannot, even from 
the highest motives, be reversed for an instant 
without casting upon us some shadow of doubt 
and suspicion. Truly, wealth is not so great an 
advantage that we cannot find some counterpoise 
to it. I imagine that a man who brings his wife, 
in exchange for some bags of gold, a name that 
he has made illustrious, acknowledged worth, a 
great position, or the promise of a great future, 
does not feel that he is under a crushing obliga- 
tion. But my hands are empty, my future is no 
171 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

better than my present ; of all the advantages 
which the world worships I have only one — my 
title — and I am determined not to bear it, that it 
may not be said it was the price of a bargain. I 
should receive all and give nothing. A king may 
marry a shepherdess ; that is generous and charm- 
ing, and we congratulate him with good reason ; 
but a shepherd who lets a queen marry him does 
not cut so fine a figure. 

I have spent the night thinking these things 
over, and seeking a solution that I have not yet 
found. Perhaps I ought to leave this house and 
this place at once. Prudence counsels it. This 
business cannot end well. How often one minute 
of courage and firmness would spare us a lifetime 
of regret ! I ought at least to be overwhelmed by 
sadness ; I have never had such good reason for 
melancholy. But I cannot grieve. My brain, 
distracted and tortured, yet holds a thought which 
dominates everything, and fills me with more than 
mortal joy. My soul is as light as a bird of the 
air. I see — I shall always see — that little cemetery, 
that distant ocean, that vast horizon, and on that 
glowing hilltop, that angel of beauty bathed in 
divine tears ! Still, I feel her hand under my lips, 
her tears in my eyes and in my heart. I love 
her! Well, to-morrow, if so it must be, I will 
172 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

decide. Till then, for God’s sake, let me have a 
little rest. I have not been overdone with happi- 
ness. I may die of this love, but I will live in 
peace with it for one day at least. 


August 26th. 

That day, the single day I asked, has not been 
granted me. My brief weakness has not had long 
to wait for its punishment, which will be lasting. 
How could I have forgotten ? Moral laws can 
no more be broken with impunity than physical, 
and their invariable action constitutes the perma- 
nent intervention of what we call Providence in 
the affairs of this world. A great, though weak 
man, writing the gospel of a sage with the hand 
of a quasi-maniac, said of the passions that were at 
once his misery, his reproach, and his glory : 

“ All are good while we are their masters ; all 
are bad when we let them enslave us. Nature 
forbids us to let our attachments exceed our 
strength ; reason forbids us to desire what we 
cannot obtain ; conscience does not forbid us to 
be tempted, it does forbid us to yield to tempta- 
tion. It does not rest with us to have or not to 
have passions, but it does rest with us to control 
them. All the feelings which we govern are legit- 
imate ; all those that govern us are criminal. 
i73 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

Attach your heart only to the beauty that does 
not perish ; limit your desires by your conditions ; 
put your duties before your passions ; extend the 
law of necessity to things moral ; learn to lose 
what may be taken from you ; learn to give up 
everything at the command of virtue !” 

Yes, such is the law. I knew it; I have 
broken it ; I am punished. It is right. I had 
scarcely set foot on my cloud of folly when I was 
thrown violently off, and now, after five days, I 
have barely courage to recount the almost ridicu- 
lous details of my downfall. 

Mme. Laroque and her daughter had gone in 
the morning to pay another visit to Mme. de 
Saint-Cast, and to bring back Mme. Aubry. I 
found Mile. H6louin alone at the chateau. I had 
brought her quarter’s salary ; for, though my 
duties do not, in a general way, trench on the 
maintenance and internal discipline of the house, 
the ladies had wished, no doubt from considera- 
tion for Mile. Helouin and for me, that I should 
pay both our salaries. The young lady was sit- 
ting in the small boudoir near the dining-room. 
She received me with a pensive sweetness which 
touched me. For at that moment I felt in myself 
that fulness of heart which inclines us to confi- 
dence and kindness. I quixotically resolved to 
174 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

hold out a helping hand to this poor lonely 
creature. 

“ Mademoiselle,” I said, abruptly, “'you have 
withdrawn your friendship from me, but my 
friendship for you remains unaltered. May I 
give you a proof of it ? ” 

She looked at me and murmured a timid 
assent. 

“ Well, my poor child, you are bent on your 
own ruin.” 

She rose quickly. 

“You saw me in the park that night!” she 
cried. 

“ I did.” 

“My God!” 

She came towards me. 

“ M. Maxime, I swear to you that I am a 
virtuous girl.” 

“ I believe it, mademoiselle, but I must warn 
you that in this little romance, perfectly innocent, 
no doubt, on your side, whatever it may be on the 
other, you are imperilling your reputation and 
your peace of mind. I beg you to reflect seri- 
ously on this matter, and at the same time I beg 
to assure you that no one but you will ever hear a 
word on this subject from me.” 

I was leaving the room, when she sank on her 
i75 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

knees before a couch, and burst out sobbing, lean- 
ing her forehead against my hand, which she had 
seized. It was not long since I had seen sweeter 
and nobler tears, but still I was touched. 

“ Come, my dear young lady,” I said ; “ it is 
not too late, is it ? ” 

She shook her head decisively. 

“ Very well, my child. Be brave, and we will 
save you. What can I do to help you — tell me ? 
Has this man any proof, any letter, I can demand 
from him on your behalf ? Command me as if I 
were your brother.” 

She released my hand angrily. 

“ How hard you are !” she said. “You talk 
of saving me ... it is you who are ruining me. 
After pretending to love me, you repulsed me 
. . . you have humiliated me and made me des- 
perate. You are the sole cause of what has hap- 
pened.” 

“ Mademoiselle, you are unjust. I never pre- 
tended to love you. I had a sincere affection for 
you, and I have it still. I admit that your 
beauty, your wit, and your talents fully entitle 
you to look for more than fraternal friendship 
from those who see you every day. But my 
situation, and my duties to my family preclude my 
indulging any other feeling for you without being 
176 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

dishonourable. I tell you frankly that I think 
you are charming, and I assure you that in re- 
stricting my sentiments towards you within the 
limits imposed by loyalty, I have not been with- 
out merit. I see nothing humiliating for you in 
that ; what might, indeed, humiliate you, mad- 
emoiselle, would be the determined pursuit of a 
man determined not to marry you.” 

She gave me an evil look. 

“What do you know about it?” she said. 
“ Every man is not a fortune-hunter.” 

“ Oh ! mademoiselle, are you a spiteful little 
person ?” I said, very calmly. “ If so, I will wish 
you good-day.” 

“ M. Maxime ! ” she cried, rushing forward to 
stop me, “ forgive me ! have pity on me ! Alas ! 
I am so unhappy. Imagine what must be the 
thoughts of a poor creature like me, who has been 
given — cruelly — a heart, a soul, a brain . . . and 
who can only use them to suffer . . . and to 
hate ! What is my life ? What is my future ? 
My life is the perception of my poverty, cease- 
lessly aggravated by the luxury which surrounds 
me ! My future will be to regret, some day, to 
weep bitterly for even this life — this slave’s life, 
odious as it is ! You talk of my youth, my wit, 
and my talents. Would that I had never had the 
1 77 


12 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

capacity for anything higher than breaking stones 
on the road ! I should have been happier. My 
talents ! I shall have passed the best part of my 
life in decking another woman with them, and 
giving her thereby additional beauty, power — and 
insolence. And when my best blood has passed 
into this doll’s veins, she will go off on the arm of 
a happy husband to take her part in the best 
pleasures of life, while, old, solitary, and deserted, 
I shall go to die in some hole with the pension of 
a lady’s maid. What have I done to deserve this 
fate, tell me that ? Why should it be mine rather 
than that of those other women ? Because I am 
not as good as they are ? If I am bad, it is be- 
cause suffering has envenomed me, because injus- 
tice has blackened my soul. I was born with a 
disposition as great as theirs — perhaps greater — to 
be good and loving and charitable. My God ! 
benefits cost little when you’re rich, and kindness 
is easy when you’re happy. If I were in their 
place, and they in mine, they would hate me . . . 
as I hate them. . . . We do not love our masters. 
Ah ! this is horrible — what I am saying to you. 
I know it, and this is the crowning bitterness — I 
feel my own degradation, I blush for it . . . and 
I increase it. Alas ! now you despise me more 
than ever . . . you, whom I could have loved so 
178 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

much, if you would have let me ; you, who could 
have given me all that I have lost — hope, peace, 
goodness, self-respect ! Ah ! there was a moment 
when I believed that I was saved . . . when for 
the first time I dreamed of happiness, of hope, of 
pride ! . . . Poor wretch ! . . 

She had seized both my hands ; her head fell 
on them, and she wept wildly under her long, 
flowing curls. 

“ My dear child,” I said to her, “ I know bet- 
ter than any one the trials and humiliations of 
your position, but let me tell you that you increase 
them greatly by nourishing the sentiments you 
have just expressed. They are hideous, and you 
will end by deserving all the hardships of your lot. 
But, after all, your imagination strangely exag- 
gerates those hardships. As for the present, what- 
ever you may say, you are treated like a friend 
here ; as to the future, I see nothing to prevent 
you from leaving this house on the arm of a 
happy husband, too. For my part, I shall be 
grateful for your affection throughout my life ; 
but — I will tell you once more, and finish with the 
subject forever — I have duties that bind me, and 
I do not wish, nor am I able, to marry.” 

She looked at me suddenly. 

“Not even Marguerite ?” she said. 


179 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“ I do not see that it is necessary to introduce 
Mile. Marguerite’s name.” 

With one hand she threw back the hair which 
fell over her face, and the other she held out at 
me with a menacing gesture. 

“You love her!” she said in a hoarse voice. 
“No, you love her money, but you shall not 
have it ! ” 

“ Mademoiselle Hdlouin ! ” 

“Ah!” she continued, “you must be a child 
indeed if you think you can deceive a woman who 
was fool enough to love you. I see through your 
manoeuvres. Besides, I know who you are. I 
was not far off when Mile, de Porhoet conveyed 
your well-calculated confidence to Mme. La- 
roque ” 

“ So yop'listen at doors, mademoiselle ! ” 

“ I care nothing for your insults. . . . Besides, 
I shall avenge myself, and soon, too. . . . Oh, 
there’s no doubt you’re very clever, M. de Cham- 
cey ! I congratulate you. Wonderfully well 
have you played your little part of disinterested- 
ness and reserve, as your friend Laubdpin advised 
you to do when he sent you here. He knew the 
person you would have to deal with. He knew 
well enough this girl’s absurd mania. And you 
think you’ve already got your prey, don’t you ? 

180 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

Adorable millions, aren’t they ? There are queer 
stories about their origin. But, at any rate, they 
will serve very well to furbish up your marquisate, 
and regild your escutcheon. Well, from this mo- 
ment you can give up that idea . . . for I swear 
you shall not keep your mask a day longer, and 
this hand shall tear it from you.” 

“ Mile. H£louin, it is quite time we brought 
this scene to an end ; we are verging on melo- 
drama. You have given me an opportunity 
of forestalling you in tale-bearing and calumnia- 
tion ; but you are perfectly safe. I give you 
my word of honour that I shall not use those 
weapons. And, mademoiselle, I am your humble 
servant.” 

I left the unhappy girl with a feeling of 
mingled disgust and pity. I have always thought 
that the highest organization must, from its very 
nature, be galled and warped in a situation as 
equivocal and humiliating as that which Mile. 
Hdlouin occupies here. But I was not prepared 
for the abyss of venom that had just opened 
under my eyes. Most assuredly — when one 
thinks the matter out — one can scarcely conceive 
a situation which subjects a human soul to more 
hateful temptations, or is better calculated to de- 
velop and sharpen envy, to arouse the protests 
1 8 1 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

of pride, and to exasperate feminine vanity and 
jealousy. Most of the unhappy girls who are 
driven to this occupation only escape the troubles 
Mile. Helouin had not been able to guard herself 
against, either by the moderation of their feeling, 
or, by the grace of God, through the firmness 
of their principles. Sometimes I had thought 
that our misfortunes might make it necessary for 
my sister to go as governess into some rich family. 
I swore then that whatever future might be re- 
served for us, I would rather share the hardest 
life in the poorest garret with Helene than let 
her sit at the poisoned banquets of an opulent 
and hateful servitude. 

Though I had firmly resolved to leave the 
field free to Mile. Hdlouin, and on no account to 
engage personally in the recriminations of a de- 
grading contest, I could not regard without mis- 
giving the probable consequences of the treacher- 
ous war just declared against me. Evidently, I 
was threatened where I was most sensitive — in my 
love and in my honour. Mistress of the secret 
of my heart, mingling truth and falsehood with 
the skilful perfidy of her sex, Mile. Helouin 
might easily show my conduct in an unfavourable 
light, turn all the precautions and scruples of my 
delicacy against me, and give my simplest actions 
182 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

the appearance of deliberate intrigue. I could 
not foresee the form her malevolence would take, 
but I could depend upon her to choose the most 
effectual methods. Better than any one, she 
knew the weak places in the imaginations she 
wished to impress. Over Mile. Marguerite and 
her mother she had the advantage which dissim- 
ulation usually has over frankness, and cunning 
over simplicity. They trusted her with the trust 
that is born of long use and daily association. 
Her masters, as she called them, were not likely 
to suspect that under the pretty brightness and 
obsequious consideration which she assumed with 
such consummate art she concealed a frenzy of 
pride and ingratitude which was eating her miser- 
able heart away. It was too probable that a hand 
so sure and skilful would pour its poison with 
complete success into hearts thus prepared. It 
was true Mile. Helouin might be afraid that by 
yielding to her resentment she would thrust Mile. 
Marguerite’s hand into that of M. de Bevallan, 
and hasten a marriage which would be the ruin 
of her own ambition ; but I knew that the woman 
who hates does not calculate, and risks everything. 
So I awaited from her the swiftest and blindest 
of vengeance, and I was right. 

In painful anxiety I passed the hours that 

183 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

should have been given to sweeter thoughts. All 
that a proud spirit finds most galling in depend- 
ence, the suspicion hardest for a loyal conscience, 
the scorn most bitter to a loving heart, I endured 
in anticipation. Never in my worst hours had 
adversity offered me a cup so full. However, I 
tried to work as usual. About five o’clock I went 
to the chateau. The ladies had returned during 
the afternoon. In the drawing-room I found Mile. 
Marguerite, Mme. Aubry, M. de Bdvallan, and 
two or three casual guests. Mile. Marguerite did 
not appear to be aware of my presence, but con- 
tinued to talk to M. de Bdvallan in a more ani- 
mated style than usual. They were discussing an 
impromptu dance, which was to take place the 
same evening at a neighbouring chateau. She was 
going with her mother, and urged M. de B£vallan 
to accompany them. He excused himself on the 
ground that he had left his house that morning 
before receiving the invitation, and that his cos- 
tume was inadmissible. With an eager and affec- 
tionate coquetry which evidently surprised even 
him, Mile. Marguerite persisted, saying that 
there was still time to go back and dress and 
return to fetch them. She promised that a nice 
little dinner should be kept for him. M. de Be- 
vallan said that his carriage horses were not avail- 
184 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

able, and that he could not ride back in evening 
dress. 

“Very well,” replied Mile. Marguerite; “they 
shall drive you over in the dog-cart.” 

At the same moment she turned towards me 
for the first time, with a look in which I saw the 
thunderbolt that was about to fall. 

“ M. Odiot,” she said in a sharp, imperious 
tone, “go and tell them to put the horse in.” 

This imperious order was so little in harmony 
with such as I was accustomed to receive here, or 
such as I could be expected to tolerate, that the 
attention and curiosity of the most indifferent were 
excited. 

There was an awkward silence. M. de Bdval- 
lan glanced in surprise at Mile. Marguerite ; then 
he looked at me, and got up with a very serious 
air. If they thought I should give way to some 
mad prompting of anger they were mistaken. It 
was true that the insulting words which had just 
fallen on me from a mouth so beautiful, so be- 
loved, and so cruel, had struck the icy coldness of 
death to the very depths of my being. A blade 
of steel piercing my heart could hardly have caused 
me keener pain. But never had I been calmer. 
The bell which Mme. Laroque uses to summon 
her servants stood on a table within my reach. I 
185 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

touched it with my finger. A man-servant entered 
almost directly. 

11 1 think,” I said to him, “ Mile. Marguerite 
has some orders to give you.” 

At this speech, which she had heard in amaze- 
ment, Marguerite shook her head quickly, and dis- 
missed the man. I longed to get out of this 
room, where I seemed to be choking, but, in view 
of M. de Bevallan’s provoking manner, I could 
not withdraw. 

“ Upon my word,” he murmured, “ there’s 
something very strange about all this.” 

I took no notice of him. Mile. Marguerite 
said something to him under her breath. 

“ I obey, mademoiselle,” he said in a louder 
tone ; “but you will allow me to express my sin- 
cere regret that I have not the right to interpose 
here.” 

I rose immediately. 

“ M. de Bevallan,” I said, standing within a 
pace or two of him, “ that regret is quite super- 
fluous, for though I have not thought fit to obey 
Mile. Laroque’s orders, I am entirely at yours . . . 
and I shall expect to receive them.” 

“Very good, very good, sir; nothing could be 
better,” replied M. de Bevallan, waving his hand 
airily to reassure the ladies. 

1 86 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

We bowed to one another and I went out. I 
dined alone in my tower. Poor Alain waited on 
me as usual. No doubt he had heard of what 
had occurred, for he kept looking at me mourn- 
fully, sighed often and deeply, and, contrary to his 
custom, preserved a gloomy silence, only breaking 
it to reply, in answer to my question, that the 
ladies had decided not to go to the ball. 

After a hurried meal, I put my papers in order 
and wrote a few words to M. Laubepin. In view 
of a possible contingency I recommended Helene 
to his care. The thought that I might leave her 
unprotected and friendless nearly broke my heart, 
without in the least affecting my immovable prin- 
ciples. I may deceive myself, but I have always 
thought that honour in our modern life is para- 
mount in the hierarchy of duties. It takes the 
place of so many virtues which have nearly faded 
from our consciences, of so many dormant beliefs ; 
it plays such a tutelary part in the present state of 
society, that I would never consent to weaken its 
claims, or lessen its obligations. In its indefinite 
character, there is something superior to law 
and morality : one does not reason about it ; one 
feels it. It is a religion. If we have no longer 
the folly of the Cross, let us keep the folly of 
Honour ! Moreover, no sentiment has ever taken 
187 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

such deep root in the human soul without the 
sanction of reason. It is better that a girl or a 
wife should be alone in the world, than that she 
should be protected by a dishonoured brother or 
husband. 

Each moment I expected a letter from M. de 
Bdvallan. I was getting ready to go to the col- 
lector of taxes in the town, a young officer who 
had been wounded in the Crimea, and ask him to 
be my second, when some one knocked at my 
door. M. de Bdvallan himself came in. Apart 
from a slight shade of embarrassment, his face ex- 
pressed nothing but a frank and joyful kindliness. 

“ M. Odiot,” he said, as I looked at him in 
surprise, “ this is rather an unusual step,, but, 
thank Heaven, my service-records place my cour- 
age beyond suspicion. On the other hand, I have 
such good reason for feeling happy to-night that I 
have no room for rancour or enmity. Lastly, I 
am obeying orders which will now be more sacred 
to me than ever. In short, I come to offer you 
my hand.” 

I bowed gravely and took his hand. 

“ Now,” he went on as he sat down, “ I can 
execute my commission comfortably. A .little 
while ago Mile. Marguerite, in a thoughtless 
moment, gave you some instructions which most 
188 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

assuredly did not come within your province. 
Very properly, your susceptibility was aroused, 
we quite recognise that, and now the ladies 
charge me to beg that you will accept their re- 
grets. They would be in despair if the miscon- 
ception of a moment could deprive them of your 
good offices, which they value extremely, and put 
an end to relations which they esteem most highly. 
Speaking for myself, I have this evening acquired 
the right to add my entreaties to those of the 
ladies. Something I have long desired has been 
granted me, and I shall be personally indebted 
to you if you will prevent the happy memories 
of this day from being marred by a separation 
which would be at once disadvantageous and 
painful to the family into which I shall shortly 
enter.” 

“ M. de Bevallan,” I said, “ I fully recognise 
and appreciate all that you have said on behalf of 
the ladies, as well as on your own account. You 
will excuse me from giving a final answer immedi- 
ately. This is a matter which requires more judi- 
cial consideration than I can give it at present.” 

“At least,” said M. de Bdvallan, “you will let 
me take back a hopeful report. Come, M. Odiot, 
since we have the opportunity, let us break 
through the barrier of ice that has kept us apart 
189 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

till now. As far as I am concerned, I am quite 
willing. In the first place, Mme. Laroque, with- 
out revealing a secret that does not belong to her, 
has given me to understand that under the kind 
of mystery with which you surround yourself, 
there are circumstances which reflect the highest 
credit on you. And, besides, I have a private 
reason for being grateful to you. I know that 
you have lately been consulted in reference to 
my intentions towards Mile. Laroque, and that 
I have cause to congratulate myself on your 
opinion.” 

“ My dear sir, I do not think I deserve ” 

“ Oh, I know !” he continued, laughing. “ You 
didn’t praise me up to the skies, but, at all events, 
you did me no harm. And I admit that you 
showed real insight. You said that though Mile. 
Marguerite might not be absolutely happy with me, 
she would not be unhappy. Well, the prophet 
Daniel could not have spoken better. The truth 
is, the dear child will never be absolutely happy 
with any one, because she will not find in the 
whole world a husband who will talk poetry to 
her from morning to night. . . . They’re not to 
be had. I am no more capable of it than any one 
else, I own ; but — as you were good enough to 
say — I am an honourable man. And really, when 
190 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

we know one another better, you will be con- 
vinced of it. I am not a brute ; I am a good 
fellow. God knows I have faults . . . one espe- 
cially : I am fond of pretty women. ... I am, 
I can’t deny it. But what does it matter? It 
shows that one has a good heart. Besides, here I 
am in port . . . and I am delighted, because — 
between ourselves — I was getting into a bit of a 
mess. In short, I mean only to think about my 
wife and children in future. So, like you, I 
believe Marguerite will be perfectly happy — that 
is to say, as far as she could be in this world with 
ideas like hers. For, after all, I shall be good to 
her; I shall refuse her nothing, and I shall do 
even more than she desires. But if she asks me 
for the moon and the stars, I can’t go and fetch 
them to please her . . . that’s not possible. . . . 
And now, my dear friend, your hand once more.” 

I gave it him. He got up. 

“ Good ! I hope that you will stay with us 
now. . . . Come, let me see that a brighter 
face ! We will make your life as pleasant as pos- 
sible, but you’ll have to help us a bit, you know. 
You cultivate your sadness, I fancy. You live, if 
I may say so, too much like an owl. You’re a 
kind of Spaniard such as one rarely sees. You 
must drop that sort of thing. You are young 
I 9 I 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

and good-looking, you have wit and talents ; 
make the best of those qualities. Listen. Why 
not try a flirtation with little Hdlouin. ... It 
would amuse you. She is very charming, and she 
would suit you. But, deuce take me ! I am 
rather forgetting my promotion to high dignities ! 
. . . And now, good-bye, Maxime, till to-morrow, 
isn’t it ? ” 

“Till to-morrow, certainly.” 

And this honest gentleman — who is the sort 
of Spaniard one often sees ! — left me to my reflec- 
tions. 


October ist. 

A strange thing has happened. Though the 
results are not, so far, very satisfactory, they have 
done me good. The blow I had received had left 
me numb with grief. This at least makes me feel 
that I am alive, and for the first time for three long 
weeks I have had the courage to open this book 
and take up my pen. Every satisfaction having 
been given to me, I thought there was no longer 
any reason for leaving, at least suddenly, a posi- 
tion and advantages which, after all, I need, and 
could not easily replace. The mere prospect 
of the personal sufferings I had to face, which, 
moreover, were the result of my own weakness, 
192 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

could not entitle me to shirk duties which in- 
volved other interests than my own. And more ; 
I did not intend that Mile. Marguerite should in- 
terpret my sudden flight as the result of pique at 
the loss of a good match. I made it a point of 
honour to show her an unruffled front up to the 
altar itself. As for my heart — that she could not 
see. So I contented myself with informing M. 
Laubepin that certain things incident to my situ- 
ation might at any moment become unbearable, 
and that I eagerly desired some less lucrative but 
more independent occupation. 

The next day I appeared at the chateau, where 
M. de Bdvallan received me cordially. I greeted 
the ladies with all the self-possession I could com- 
mand. There was, of course, no explanation. 
Mme. Laroque seemed moved and thoughtful ; 
Mile. Marguerite was a little highly strung still, 
but polite. As for Mile. H^louin, she was very 
pale, and kept her eyes fixed on her work. The 
poor girl could not have been very much delighted 
with the final result of her diplomacy. She en- 
deavoured once or twice to dart a look of scorn 
and menace at M. de Bdvallan ; but though this 
stormy atmosphere might have troubled a neo- 
phyte, M. de B£vallan breathed, moved, and flut- 
tered about in it entirely at his ease. His regal 
i93 


13 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

self-possession evidently irritated Mile. Helouin, 
but it quelled her at the same time. I am sure, 
however, that she would have played him the 
same sort of trick she had played me the day be- 
fore, and with far more excuse, if she had not been 
afraid of ruining herself as well as her accomplice. 
But it was most likely that if she yielded to her 
jealous rage, and admitted her ingratitude and du- 
plicity, she would ruin herself only, and she was 
quite clever enough to see this. In fact, M. de 
Bevallan was not the kind of man to have run any 
risks with her, without having provided himself 
with some very effective weapon which he would 
use with pitiless indifference. Of course, Mile. 
Hdlouin might tell herself that the night before 
they had believed her when she made other false 
accusations, but she knew that the falsehood 
which flatters or wounds is much more readily be- 
lieved than mere general truth. So she suffered 
in silence, not, I suppose, without feeling keenly 
that the sword of treachery sometimes turns 
against the person who makes use of it. During 
this day and those which followed I had to bear a 
kind of torture I had foreseen, though without 
realizing how painful it would be. The marriage 
was fixed for a month later. All the preparations 
had to be made at once and in great haste. Reg- 
194 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

ularly each morning came one of Mme. Provost’s 
bouquets. Laces, dresses, jewels poured in and 
were exhibited every evening to interested and 
envious ladies. I had to give my opinion and my 
advice on everything. Mile. Marguerite begged 
for them with almost cruel persistence. I re- 
sponded as graciously as I could, and then re- 
turned to my tower and took from a secret 
drawer the tattered handkerchief I had won at 
the risk of my life, and I dried my tears with it. 
Weakness again ! But what would you have ? 
I love her. Treachery, enmity, hopeless misun- 
derstandings, her pride and mine, separate us for- 
ever ! So let it be, but nothing can prevent me 
from living and dying with my heart full of her. 

As for M. de Bdvallan, I did not hate him ; he 
was not worthy of it. He is a vulgar but harmless 
soul. Thank God ! I could receive the overtures 
of his shallow friendliness without hypocrisy, and 
put my hand tranquilly in his. But if he was too 
insignificant for my resentment, that did not lessen 
the deep and lacerating agony with which I recog- 
nised his unworthiness of the rare creature he 
would soon possess — and never know. I cannot, 
and I dare not, describe the flood of bitter 
thoughts, of nameless sensations which have been 
aroused in me at the thought of this odious md- 
i95 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

sallionce , and have not yet subsided. Love, real 
true love, has something sacred in it, which gives 
an almost superhuman character to its pain as to 
its joy. 

To the man who loves her, a woman has a sort 
of divinity of which no other man knows the 
secret, which belongs only to her lover, and to see 
even the threshold of this mystery profaned by 
another gives us a strange and indescribable shock 
— a horror, as of sacrilege. It is not merely that 
a precious possession is taken from you ; it is an 
altar polluted, a mystery violated, a god defiled ! 
This is jealousy. At least, it is mine. In all sin- 
cerity it seemed to me that in the whole world I 
only had eyes to see, intelligence to understand, 
and a heart to worship in its full perfection the 
beauty of this angel. With any other she would 
be cast away, and lost ; body and soul, she was des- 
tined for me from all eternity. So vast was my 
pride ! I expiated it with suffering as immeasur- 
able. 

Nevertheless, some mocking demon whispered 
that in all probability Marguerite would find more 
peace and real happiness in the kindly friendship 
of a judicious husband, than she would have en- 
joyed in the poetic passion of a romantic lover. 
Is it true ? Is it possible ? I do not believe it. 

196 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

She will have peace ! Granted. But peace, after 
all, is not the best thing in life, nor the highest 
kind of happiness. If insensibility and a petrified 
heart sufficed to make us happy, too many people 
who do not deserve it would be happy. By dint 
of reasoning and calculation we come to blaspheme 
against God, and to degrade his work. God 
gives peace to the dead ; to the living he gives 
passion ! Yes, in addition to the vulgar interests 
of daily life, which I am not so foolish as to ex- 
pect to set aside, a certain poetry is permitted, 
nay, enjoined. That is the heritage of the im- 
mortal soul. And this soul must feel, and some- 
times reveal itself, whether by visions that tran- 
scend the real, by aspirations that out-soar the 
possible, by storms, or by tears. Yes, there is suf- 
fering which is better than happiness, or, rather, 
which is itself happiness — that of a living creat- 
ure who knows all the agonies of the heart, and 
all the illusions of the mind, and who accepts 
these noble torments with an equable mind and 
a fraternal heart. That is the romance which 
every one who claims to be a man, and to justify 
that claim, may, and indeed is bound to put into 
his life. 

And, after all, this boasted peace will not be 
hers. The marriage of two stolid hearts, of two 
197 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

frozen imaginations, may produce the calm of 
lifelessness. I can believe that, but the union of 
life with death cannot be endured without a hor- 
rible oppression and ceaseless anguish. 

In the midst of these personal miseries, which 
increased each day in intensity, my only refuge 
was my poor old friend, Mile, de Porhoet. She 
did not know, or pretended not to know, the 
state of my heart ; but with her remote and per- 
haps involuntary allusions she touched my bleed- 
ing wounds with a woman’s light and delicate 
hand. And this soul, the living symbol of sacri- 
fice and resignation, which seemed already to float 
above our earth, had a detachment, a calmness, 
and a gentle firmness, which seemed to descend 
on me. I came to understand her innocent delu- 
sion, and to share it with something of the same 
simplicity. Bent over the album, I wandered with 
her for hours through the cloisters of her cathe- 
dral, and breathed for a while the vague perfumes 
of an ideal serenity. 

I further found at the old lady’s house another 
kind of distraction. Habit gives an interest to 
every kind of work. To prevent Mile, de Porhoet 
from suspecting the final loss of her case, I regu- 
larly continued the exploration of the family 
archives. Among the confused mass I occasion- 
198 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

ally came across traditions, legends, and traces of 
old-world customs which awakened my curiosity 
and carried back my thoughts to far-off days 
remote from the crushing reality of life. My 
perseverance maintained Mile, de Porhoet in her 
illusions, and she was grateful to me beyond my 
deserts. For I had come to take an interest in 
this work — now practically useless — which repaid 
me for all my trouble, and gave me a wholesome 
distraction from my grief. 

As the fateful day approached, Mile. Mar- 
guerite lost the feverish vivacity which had 
seemed to inspire her since the date of the mar- 
riage had been fixed, and relapsed at times into 
the fits of indolence and sombre reverie formerly 
habitual to her. Once or twice I surprised her 
watching me in wondering perplexity. Mme. 
Laroque, too, often looked at me with an anx- 
ious and hesitating air, as if she wished and yet 
feared to discuss some painful subject with me. 
The day before yesterday I found myself by 
chance alone with her in the salon , which Mile. 
Hdlouin had just left to give some order. The 
trivial conversation in which we had been en- 
gaged ceased suddenly, as by common consent. 
After a short silence, Mme. Laroque said, in a 
voice full of emotion : 


199 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“ M. Odiot, you are not wise in your choice 
of confidants.” 

“ Confidants, madame ? I do not follow you. 
Except Mile, de Porhoet, I have had no confidant 
in this place.” 

“Alas!” she replied, “I wish to believe 
you ... \ do believe you . . . but that is not 
enough ” 

At this moment Mile. Hdlouin came in, and 
no more could be said. 

The day after — yesterday — I had ridden over 
in the morning to superintend some wood-cutting 
in the neighbourhood. I was returning to the 
chateau about four in the afternoon, when, at a 
sharp turn of the road, I found myself face to 
face with Mile. Marguerite. She was alone. I 
prepared to pass her with a bow, but she stopped 
her horse. 

“What a fine autumn day !” she said. 

“Yes, mademoiselle. You are going for a 
ride?” 

“As you see. I am making the best of my 
last moments of independence, and, in fact, I 
have been rather abusing my liberty, for I am 
somewhat tired of solitude. But Alain is wanted 
at the house. . . . Poor Mervyn is lame. . . . 
You would not care to take his place?” 


200 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“ With pleasure. Where are you going?” 

“ Well . . . I thought of riding as far as the 
tower of Elven.” 

With her whip she indicated the misty sum- 
mit of a hill which rose on the right of the road. 

“ I think,” she went on, “ you’ve never made 
that pilgrimage ? ” 

“ I have not. I have often meant to, but 
until now I have always put it off. I don’t 
know why.” 

“ Well, that is fortunate ; but it is getting 
late ; we must make haste, if you don’t mind.” 

I turned my horse and we set off at a gallop. 

As we rode along, I tried to account for this 
unexpected fancy which had an air of premedita- 
tion. I imagined that time and reflection had 
weakened the first impression that calumnies had 
made on Mile. Marguerite. Apparently, she had 
conceived some doubts of Mile. Helouin’s ve- 
racity, and had seized an opportunity to make, in 
an indirect way, a reparation which might be due 
to me. My mind full of such preoccupations, I 
gave little thought to the particular object of this 
strange ride. Still, I had often heard the tower 
of Elven described as one of the most interesting 
ruins of the country. I had never gone along 
either of the roads — from Rennes or from Jos- 


201 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

selin — which lead to the sea, without looking 
longingly at the confused mass rearing up sud- 
denly among the distant heaths like some huge 
stone on end. But I had had neither time nor 
opportunity to examine it. 

Slackening our pace, we passed through the 
village of Elven, which preserves to a remarkable 
extent the character of a mediaeval hamlet. The 
form of the low, dark houses has not changed for 
five or six centuries. You think you are dream- 
ing, when, looking into the big arched bays which 
serve as windows, you see the groups of mild-eyed 
women in sculpturesque costume plying their dis- 
taffs in the shade, and talking in low tones an un- 
known tongue. These gray spectral figures seem 
to have just left their tombs to repeat some 
scene of a bygone age, of which you are the 
only witness. It gives a sense of oppression. 
The sluggish life that stirs around you in the 
single street of the village has the same stamp 
of archaic strangeness transmitted from a van- 
ished world. 

A little way from Elven we took a cross-road 
that brought us to the top of a bare hillock. 
Thence, though still some distance off, we could 
plainly see the feudal colossus crowning a wooded 
height in front of us. The lande we were on 


202 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

sloped steeply to some marshy meadows inclosed 
by thickets. 

We descended the farther side and soon en- 
tered the woods. Then we struck a narrow cause- 
way, the rugged pavement of which must once 
have rung to the hoofs of mail-clad horses. For 
some time I had lost sight of the tower of Elven, 
and could not even guess where it was, when all 
at once it stood out like an apparition from among 
the foliage a few paces in front of us. The tower 
is not a ruin ; it preserves its original height of 
more than a hundred feet, and the irregular 
courses of granite which make up its splendid oc- 
tagonal mass give it the appearance of a huge 
block cut out but yesterday by some skilful chisel. 
It would be difficult to imagine anything more 
proud, sombre, and imposing than this old donjon, 
impassible to the course of ages, and lost in the 
depths of the forest. Full-grown trees have 
sprung up in the deep moats which surround it, 
and their tops scarcely touch the openings of the 
lowest windows. This gigantic vegetation, which 
entirely conceals the base of the edifice, completes 
its air of fantastic mystery. In this solitude, 
among these forests, before this mass of weird ar- 
chitecture, which seems to start up suddenly out 
of the earth, one thinks involuntarily of those 
203 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

enchanted castles in which beautiful princesses 
slept for centuries awaiting a deliverer. 

“ So far,” said Mile. Marguerite, to whom I 
had endeavoured to convey these impressions, 
“ this is all I have seen of it, but if you want to 
wake the princess, we can go in. I believe there is 
always somewhere near a shepherd or shepherdess 
who has the key. Let us tie up the horses and 
search, you for the shepherd, and I for the shep- 
herdess.” 

We put the horses into a small inclosure near 
and separated for a little while, but found neither 
shepherd nor shepherdess. Of course this in- 
creased our desire to visit the tower. Crossing 
a bridge over the moat, we found to our great sur- 
prise that the heavy door was not closed. We 
pushed it and entered a dark and narrow space 
choked with rubbish, which may have been the 
guard-room. We passed thence into a large, al- 
most circular hall, where an escutcheon in the 
chimneypiece still displayed the bezants of a 
crusader. A large window faced us, divided by 
the symbolic cross clearly carved in stone. It 
lighted all the lower part of the room, leaving the 
vaulted and ruined ceiling in shadow. At the 
sound of our steps a flock of birds whirled off, 
sending the dust of ages on to our heads. 

204 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

By standing on the granite benches, which ran 
like steps along the side of the walls, in the em- 
brasure of the window, we could see the moat 
outside and the ruined parts of the fortress. But 
as we came in we had noticed a staircase cut out 
of the solid wall, and we were childishly eager 
to extend our discoveries. We began the ascent, 
I leading, and Mile. Marguerite following bravely, 
and managing her long skirts as best she could. 
The view from the platform at the top is vast 
and exquisite. The soft hues of twilight tinged 
the ocean of half-golden autumnal foliage, the 
gloomy marshes, the fresh pastures, and the dis- 
tant horizons of intersecting slopes, which mingled 
and succeeded each other in endless perspective. 
Gazing on this gracious landscape, in its infinite 
melancholy, the peace of solitude, the silence of 
evening, the poetry of ancient days fell like some 
potent spell upon our hearts and spirits. This 
hour of common contemplation and emotions of 
purest, deepest pleasure, no doubt the last I should 
spend with her, I entered into with an almost 
painful violence of enjoyment. I do not know 
what Marguerite was feeling ; she had sat down 
on the ledge of the parapet, and was gazing into 
the distance in silence. 

I cannot say how many moments passed in 
205 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

this way. When the mists gathered in the lower 
meadows, and the distant landscape began to fade 
into the growing darkness, Marguerite rose. 

“ Come,” she said in a low voice, as if the 
curtain had fallen on some beautiful spectacle ; 
“ come ; it’s over.” 

She began to descend the stairs, and I fol- 
lowed her. 

But when we tried to get out of the donjon, to 
our great surprise we found the door closed. Most 
likely the doorkeeper, not knowing that we were 
there, had locked it while we were on the plat- 
form. At first this amused us. The tower was 
really an enchanted tower. I made some vigor- 
ous efforts to break the spell, but the huge bolt 
of the old lock was firmly fixed in its granite 
socket, and I had to give up all hope of moving 
it. I attacked the door itself, but the massive 
hinges and the oak panels studded with iron 
stolidly resisted all my efforts. Some stone mul- 
lions, which I found among the rubbish and 
hurled against the door, only shook the vault 
and brought some fragments from it to our feet. 
Mile. Marguerite at last made me give up a task 
that was hopeless, and not without danger. I then 
ran to the window and shouted, but no one re- 
plied. For ten minutes I continued shouting, and 
206 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

to no purpose. We took advantage of the last 
rays of light to explore the interior of the don- 
jon very carefully. But the door, which was as 
good as walled up for us, and the large window, 
thirty feet above the moat, were the only exits 
we could discover. 

Meanwhile, night had fallen on the fields, and 
the shadows deepened in the old tower. The 
moonbeams shone in through the window, streak- 
ing the steps with oblique white lines. Mile. Mar- 
guerite’s gaiety had gradually died away, and she 
had even ceased to answer the more or less prob- 
able conjectures with which I still tried to calm 
her apprehensions. While she kept silent and 
immovable in the shadow, I sat in the full light 
on the step nearest the window, still shouting at 
intervals for help ; but, to speak the truth, the 
more uncertain the success of my attempts be- 
came, the more I was conscious of a feeling of 
irresistible joyfulness. For suddenly I saw the 
eternal and impossible dream of lovers realized 
for me ; I was shut in the heart of a desert and 
in the most complete solitude with the woman I 
loved. For long hours there would be but she 
and I in the world, but her life and mine. I 
thought of all the sweet evidences of protection 
and of tender respect it would be my right and 
207 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

my duty to show her. I imagined her fears at 
rest, her confidence restored, finally her slumbers 
guarded by me. I told myself, in rapture, that 
this auspicious night, though it could not give 
me her love, would at least insure me her unalter- 
able respect. 

As I yielded, with the egotism of passion, to 
my secret ecstasy, some trace of which, perhaps, 
expressed itself in my face, I was suddenly awak- 
ened by these words, spoken in a dull tone, and 
with affected calm : 

“ M. le Marquis de Champcey, have there been 
many cowards in your family before you ? ” 

I rose, and immediately fell back again on the 
stone bench, looking stupidly into the darkness, 
where I saw dimly the ghostly figure of the 
young girl. Only one idea occurred to me — a 
terrible idea — that grief and fear had affected her 
reason — that she was going mad. 

“ Marguerite ! ” I cried, without knowing that 
I spoke. 

The word no doubt put a climax to her irri- 
tation. 

“ My God, this is hateful ! ” she continued. 
“ It is cowardly. I repeat, it is cowardly.” 

I began to see the truth. I descended one of 
the steps. 


208 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“What is the matter?” I said coldly. 

She replied with abrupt vehemence: “You 
paid that man or child, whichever it was, to shut us 
up in this wretched tower. To-morrow I shall be 
ruined . . . my reputation lost . . . then I shall 
have perforce to belong to you. That was your 
calculation, wasn’t it ? But, I warn you, it will 
not serve you any better than the rest. You still 
know me very little if you think I would not 
prefer dishonour, the convent, death, anything, to 
the vileness of yielding my hand — my^ life — to 
yours. And suppose this infamous trick had 
succeeded, suppose I had been weak enough — 
which of a surety I never shall be — to yield my- 
self, and what you covet more, my fortune to 
you, what kind of a man can you be ? What 
mud are you made of, to desire wealth and a 
wife by such means ? Ah ! you may thank me 
for not yielding to your wishes. They are im- 
prudent, believe me ; for if ever shame and pub- 
lic ridicule drove me to your arms, I have such 
a contempt for you that I would break your 
heart. Yes, were it as hard and cold as these 
stones, I would press blood and tears from it ! ” 

“ Mademoiselle,” I said, with all the calm I 
could command, “ I beg you to return to your- 
self, to your senses. On my honour I assure you 
x 4 209 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

that you do me injustice. Think for a moment. 
Your suspicions are quite absurd. In no possible 
way could I have accomplished the treachery of 
which you accuse me ; and even if I could have 
done so, when have I ever given you the right to 
think me capable of it ? ” 

“ Everything I know of you gives me this 
right ! ” she cried, lashing the air with her whip. 
“ I will tell you once for all what has been in my 
thoughts for a long time. Why did you come 
into our house under a false name, in a false 
character ? My mother and I were happy and 
at peace. You have brought trouble, anxiety, 
and sorrow upon us. To attain your object, to 
restore your fallen fortunes, you usurped our con- 
fidence . . . you destroyed our peace . . . you 
have played with our purest, deepest, and holiest 
feelings . . . you have bruised and shattered our 
hearts without pity. That is what you have done 
or tried to do, it doesn’t matter which. Well, I 
am utterly weary of, utterly disgusted with, all 
this. I tell you plainly. And when now you 
offer to pledge your honour as a gentleman, the 
honour that has already allowed you to do so 
many unworthy things, certainly I have the right 
not to believe in it — I do not believe in it.” 

I lost all control of myself. I seized her 


210 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

hands in a transport of violence which daunted 
her. “ Marguerite, my poor child, listen. I love 
you, it is true, and a love more passionate, more 
disinterested, more holy, never possessed the heart 
of man. But you — you love me too ! Unhappy 
girl, you love me and you are killing me. You 
talk of a bruised and a broken heart. What have 
you done to mine ? But it is yours. I give it up 
to you. As for my honour, I keep it ... it is 
intact, and before long I shall compel you to ac- 
knowledge this. And on that honour I swear 
that if I die, you will weep for me ; that if I 
live — worshipped though you are — never, never, 
were you on your knees before me, would I 
marry you unless you were as poor as I, or I as 
rich as you. And now pray ! pray ! Ask God 
for a miracle ; it is time ! ” 

Then I pushed her roughly far from the em- 
brasure, and sprang on to the highest step. A 
desperate idea had come to me. I carried it 
out with the precipitation of positive madness. 
As I have said, the tops of the beeches and 
oaks that grew in the moat were on the level 
of the window. With my bent whip I drew the 
ends of the nearest branches to me, seized them 
at random, and let myself drop into the void. I 
heard my name — “ Maxime ! ” — uttered with a wild 


21 1 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

cry above my head. The branches I held bent 
their full length towards the abyss ; there was 
an ominous crack, and they broke under my 
weight. I fell heavily on the ground. The 
muddy nature of the soil must have deadened 
the shock, for I felt that I was alive, though a 
good deal hurt. One of my arms had struck the 
stonework of the moat, and I was in such pain 
that I fainted. Marguerite’s despairing voice re- 
called me to myself. 

“ Maxime ! Maxime!” she cried, “for pity’s 
sake, for God’s sake, speak to me ! Forgive me !” 

I got up and saw her in the bay of the win- 
dow, standing in an aureole of pale light, her head 
bare, her hair loose, her hands grasping the bar of 
the cross, while her glowing eyes searched the 
dark abyss. 

“ Don’t be alarmed,” I said ; “ I’m not hurt. 
Only be patient for an hour or two. Give me 
time to get to the chateau — that is the best place 
to go. You may be sure I shall keep your secret 
and save your honour, as I have just saved my 
own.” 

I scrambled painfully out of the moat and 
went to look for my horse. I used my handker- 
chief as a sling for my left arm, which was quite 
disabled and gave me great pain. The night was 


212 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

clear and I found the way easily. An hour later 
I was at the chateau. They told me that Dr. 
Desmarets was in the drawing-room. I hurried 
there and found him and a dozen others, all look- 
ing anxious and alarmed. 

“ Doctor,” I said lightly as I came in, “ my 
horse shied at his own shadow and came down in 
the road. I think my left arm is put out. Will 
you see ? ” 

“Eh, what? — put out?” said M. Desmarets, 
after he had removed the handkerchief. “Your 
arm’s broken, my poor boy.” 

Mme. Laroque started up with a little scream 
and came towards me. 

“It seems we are to have an evening of mis- 
fortunes,” she said. 

“ What else has happened ? ” I asked, as if sur- 
prised. 

“ I am afraid my daughter must have had an 
accident. She went out on horseback about 
three ; it is now eight, and she has not returned ! ” 

“ Mile. Marguerite ? Why, I met her ...” 

“ Met her ? When ? Where ? Forgive a 
mother’s selfishness, M. Odiot.” 

“ Oh, I met her on the road, about five. She 
told me she thought of going as far as the tower 
of Elven.” 


213 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“ The tower of Elven ! She has lost her way 
in the woods. We must send at once and search.” 

M. de B£vallan ordered horses to be got ready 
immediately. At first I pretended that I meant 
to be of the party, but Mme. Laroque and the 
doctor would not hear of it. Without much 
trouble I was persuaded to take to my bed, which, 
truth to tell, I needed badly. M. Desmarets at- 
tended to my arm, and then drove away with 
Mme. Laroque, who was to await the result of 
the search inaugurated by M. de Bdvallan at the 
village of Elven. 

About ten o’clock Alain came to tell me that 
Mile. Marguerite had been found. He related 
the story of her imprisonment without omitting 
any details, except, of course, those known only 
to me and the young girl. The news was soon 
confirmed by the doctor, and afterwards by Mme. 
Laroque, and I had the satisfaction of seeing that 
no one suspected what had actually occurred. 

I passed the night in repeating the dangerous 
leap from the window of the donjon with all the 
grotesque complications of fever and delirium. I 
did not get used to it. Every moment the sensa- 
tion of falling through emptiness caught me by 
the throat, and I awoke breathless. At last day 
came, and I got calm. At eight o’clock Mile, de 
214 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

Porhoet came in and took her place at my bedside 
with her knitting in her hand. She did the hon- 
ours of my room to the visitors who followed one 
another throughout the day. Mme. Laroque was 
the first after my old friend. As she held my 
hand and pressed it earnestly I saw tears on her 
face. Has her daughter confided in her ? 

Mile, de Porhoet told me that old M. La- 
roque had been confined to his bed since yester- 
day. He had a slight attack of paralysis. To- 
day he cannot speak, and they are much alarmed 
about him. The marriage is to be hastened. 
M. Laubdpin has been sent for from Paris ; he 
is expected to-morrow, and the contract will be 
signed the following day, under his direction. 

I have been able to sit up for some hours this 
evening, but, according to M. Desmarets, I should 
not have written while the fever was on me, and 
I am a great idiot. 


October jd. 

Really it seems as if some malign power were 
hard at work devising the strangest and most 
cruel tests for my conscience and heart alter- 
nately. 

M. Laubepin not having arrived this morning, 
Mme. Laroque has asked me to give her some 
215 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

of the information necessary for drawing up the 
general conditions of the contract, which is to be 
signed to-morrow. As I am obliged to keep my 
room for some days yet, I asked Mme. Laroque 
to send me the title-deeds and private documents 
in her father-in-law’s possession, as they were in- 
dispensable for the clearing up of the points she 
had mentioned to me. 

Very soon they brought me two or three 
drawers full of papers which they had taken out of 
M. Laroque’s cabinet while he was asleep, for the 
old gentleman would never let any one touch his 
secret archives. On the first paper that I took 
up I saw my family name repeated several times. 
My curiosity was irresistibly aroused. Here is 
the literal text of the document : 

To my Children 

The name I bequeath to you, and which I 
have honoured, is not mine. My father’s name 
was Savage. He was overseer of a large planta- 
tion in the Island of St. Lucia (then French), 
which belonged to a rich and noble family of 
Dauphind — the Champcey d’Hauterives. In 1793 
my father died, and, though I was quite young, I 
succeeded to the trust the Champceys reposed in 
him. Towards the end of that disastrous year 
216 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

the French Antilles were taken by the English or 
given up to them by the rebel colonists. The 
Marquis of Champcey d’Hauterive (Jacques- Au- 
guste), whom the orders of the Convention had 
not yet struck down, then commanded the Thetis 
frigate, which had been cruising on this coast for 
three years. A good number of the French colo- 
nists of the Antilles had succeeded in realizing 
their fortunes, which had been in imminent peril. 
They had arranged with the Commandant de 
Champcey to get together a fleet of light trans- 
ports, to which their property had been trans- 
ferred, and which was to sail for France under the 
protection of the guns of the Thetis. In view of 
imminent disasters, I had myself received, a long 
time back, an order and authority to sell the planta- 
tion at any price. On the night of November 14, 
1 793, I put out alone in a boat for the Point of 
Morne-au-Sable and secretly left St. Lucia, already 
occupied by the enemy. I brought with me in 
English notes and guineas the amount I had 
received for the plantation. M. de Champcey, 
thanks to his intimate knowledge of the coast, 
had slipped past the English cruiser and had 
taken refuge in the dangerous and unknown 
channel of Gros-Ilet. He had instructed me to 
join him there this night, and only awaited my 
217 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

arrival to leave the channel with his convoy and 
make for France. In crossing, I fell into the 
hands of the English. These experts in treason 
gave me the choice of being shot on the spot or 
of selling them, for the million I had with me, 
which they agreed to leave in my hands, the 
secret of the channel where the fleet was hiding. 
I was young . . . the temptation was too great. 
Half an hour later the Thetis was sunk, the convoy 
taken, and M. de Champcey seriously wounded. 
A year passed — a year without sleep. ... I was 
going mad. ... I determined to make the 
cursed English pay for the remorse I suffered. 
I went to Guadeloupe ; I changed my name ; I 
devoted the larger part of the money I had re- 
ceived to the purchase of an armed brig, and 
I fell upon the English. For fifteen years I 
washed in their blood and my own the stain 
that in an hour of weakness I had brought on 
my country’s flag. Though three parts of my 
fortune have been acquired in honourable com- 
bats, its origin was, nevertheless, the price of my 
treachery. 

Returning to France in my old age, I ascer- 
tained the position of the Champcey d’FIauterives, 
and found that they were happy and wealthy. I 
kept my own counsel. I ask my children to for- 
218 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

give me. While I lived I had not the courage to 
blush before them. My death will reveal this 
secret to them. They must use it as their con- 
sciences may direct. For myself I have only one 
prayer to address to them. Soon or late there 
will be a final war between France and her neigh- 
bour. We hate one another too much ; there’s 
nothing else to be done ; either we must devour 
them or they must devour us. If this war should 
be declared during the life of my children or grand- 
children, I desire that they give to the state a cor- 
vette fully armed and completely equipped, on 
one condition, that it shall be called the Savage , 
and be commanded by a Breton. At each broad- 
side she shall send on to the Carthaginian shore 
my bones will tremble with joy in my grave. 

Richard Savage, called Laroque. 

The memories that this terrible confession 
awakened convinced me that it was correct. 
Twenty times I had heard my father relate with 
pride and indignation this incident in my ances- 
tor’s career. But in the family we believed that 
Richard Savage— I remember the name quite well 
— had been the victim, and not the contriver of 
the treason or mischance which had betrayed the 
commandant of the Thetis . Now I understand 


219 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

the peculiarities I had often noticed in the old 
sailor’s character, and especially his thoughtful and 
timid bearing towards me. My father had always 
told me that I was the living portrait of my 
grandfather, the Marquis Jacques, and perhaps 
some dim perception of this resemblance had pen- 
etrated to the old man’s troubled brain. 

This revelation threw me into a terrible per- 
plexity. I felt but little resentment against the 
unhappy man who had redeemed a moment of 
weakness by a long life of repentance, and by a 
passion of desperation and hatred which was not 
without greatness. Nor could I, without admira- 
tion, breathe the wild blast which animated the 
lines written by this guilty but heroic hand. Still, 
what was I to do with this terrible secret ? My 
first thought was that it removed all obstacles be- 
tween Marguerite and me ; that henceforth the for- 
tune that had kept us apart would be almost an 
obligatory bond, for I was the only person in the 
world who could regularize her title to it by shar- 
ing it with her. But in truth this secret did not 
belong to me, and though I had learned it by 
the purest of accidents, strict honesty, perhaps, 
demanded that I should leave it to come at its 
own time into the hands for which it was destined. 
But while I waited for that moment the irrepa- 
220 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

rable would be accomplished. Eternal bonds were 
to be forged. The tomb was to close over my 
love, my hopes, and my sorrowful heart. And 
should I allow it when I might prevent it by a 
single word ? And the day these poor women 
learned the truth, and blushed with shame to learn 
it, perhaps they would share my regret and de- 
spair. They would be the first to cry : 

“ Ah ! if you knew, why did you not speak ? ” 

No, neither to-day nor to-morrow, nor ever, 
shall those noble women blush for shame if I can 
prevent it. My happiness shall not be bought at 
the price of their humiliation. This secret is mine 
alone. The old man, henceforth speechless, can- 
not betray himself. The secret does not exist ; 
the flames have destroyed it. I pondered it well. 
I know what I have dared to do. It was a will, a 
sacred document, and I have destroyed it. More- 
over, it did not benefit me alone. My sister, who 
is intrusted to my care, might have found a for- 
tune there, and, without consulting her, I have 
plunged her back into poverty. I know all that, 
but I will not allow two pure proud souls to be 
crushed and dishonoured by the burden of a crime 
of which they are ignorant. There is a principle 
of equity at stake far superior to mere literal jus- 
tice. If, in my turn, I have committed a crime, I 


221 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

will answer for it. But the struggle has exhausted 
me. I can do no more now. 


October 4th. 

M. Laubepin, after all, arrived yesterday. He 
came to see me. He was brusque, preoccupied, 
and seemed ill-pleased. He spoke briefly of the 
marriage. 

“ A very satisfactory business ! ” he said ; “ in 
all respects an excellent combination, where na- 
ture and society both receive the guarantees they 
have the right to require in such matters. And 
so, young man, good-night. I have to smooth 
the delicate ground of the preliminary agreements, 
that the hymeneal car of this interesting union 
may reach its goal without jolting.” 

At one o’clock this afternoon the family as- 
sembled in the drawing-room with all the prepa- 
rations and formalities observed at the signing of 
a marriage contract. I could not attend this cere- 
mony, and I blessed my broken arm for sparing 
me the trial. About three I was writing to little 
Helene, and taking care to assure her more 
strongly than ever of my complete devotion to 
her, when M. Laubepin and Mile, de Porhoet 
came into my room. In his frequent visits to 
Laroque, M. Laubepin has learnt to appreciate my 


222 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

venerable friend, and the two old people have 
formed a respectful and Platonic attachment, 
which Dr. Desmarets tries in vain to misrepresent. 
After an exchange of ceremonies, of interminable 
bows and courtesies, they took the chairs I offered 
them, and both set about considering me with an 
air of grave beatitude. 

“ Well,” I said, “ it’s over ? ” 

“ Yes,” they replied in chorus, “ it’s over.” 

“It went off well ? ” 

“Very well,” said Mile, de Porhoet. 

“ Wonderfully well,” said M. Laubepin. After 
a pause he added : “ Bdvallan’s gone to the 
devil ! ” 

“ And the young Helouin after him ! ” con- 
tinued Mile, de Porhoet. 

I exclaimed in surprise : 

“ Good God ! what has happened ?” 

“ My friend,” said M. Laubdpin, “ the contem- 
plated union had every possible advantage, and it 
would have without doubt insured the common 
happiness of both the parties concerned, if mar- 
riage were a purely commercial partnership ; but 
it is nothing of the sort. As my assistance had 
been asked, I thought it my duty to bear in mind 
the inclination of the hearts and the agreement of 
the character just as much as the relative propor- 
223 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

tions of the estates. Now, from the first, I had 
the impression that the contemplated marriage 
had one drawback. It pleased no one, neither my 
excellent friend Mme. Laroque, nor the amiable 
fiancee , nor their most sensible friends — no one, in 
fact, except perhaps the fiancd , about whom I 
trouble myself very slightly. It is true (I quote 
here from Mile, de Porhoet), it is true, I say, that 
the fiancd is gentilhomme. ...” 

“ K gentleman, if you please,” Mile, de Porhoet 
interrupted severely. 

“A gentleman ,” continued M. Laubepin, ac- 
cepting the correction, “ but it is a kind of gentle- 
man I don’t care for.” 

“Nor I,” said Mile, de Porhoet. “ There are 
curious specimens of the kind. Dissipated stable- 
men, such as those whom we saw last century de- 
serting their English stables under the direction of 
the Due de Chartres to come over here and pre- 
pare the Revolution.” 

“ Oh, if they had only prepared the Revolu- 
tion,” said M. Laubepin, sententiously, “we should 
forgive them.” 

“ A million apologies, my dear sir ; but — speak 
for yourself ! Besides, that is not the question ; 
will you go on ? ” 

“So,” continued M. Laubdpin, “seeing that 
224 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

every one was approaching this wedding as if it 
were a funeral, I searched for some honourable 
and legal means, not to break the engagement 
with M. de Bevallan, but to get him to withdraw 
voluntarily. This proceeding was the more justi- 
fiable, as in my absence M. de Bdvallan had prof- 
ited by the inexperience of my excellent friend, 
Mme. Laroque, and the weakness of my colleague 
in the neighbouring town, to make the most exor- 
bitant demand in his own interests. Without de- 
parting from the wording of the agreements, I suc- 
ceeded in materially altering their spirit. But 
there were limits which honour and the engage- 
ments already entered into forbade me to pass. 
And the contract remained favourable enough 
to be accepted with confidence by any high-minded 
man who had a sincere affection for his betrothed. 
Was M. de Bevallan such a man ? We had to 
take that risk. I confess that I was not free from 
emotion when I began to read the irrevocable 
document before an imposing audience this morn- 
ing." 

“As for me," interrupted Mile, de Porhoet, 
“ I hadn’t a drop of blood left in my veins. The 
first part of the contract conceded so much to the 
enemy that I thought all was lost." 

“ No doubt, mademoiselle ; but, as we augurs 
225 


15 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

say among ourselves, ‘ the sting is in the tail/ in 
cauda venenum. 

“ It was comical, my friend, to see the faces 
of M. de Bevallan and my confrere from Rennes, 
who assisted him, when I suddenly unmasked 
my batteries. At first they looked at each other 
in silence ; then they whispered together ; at 
last they rose, and, coming to the table where 
I sat, asked me in a low voice for an explana- 
tion. 

“ ‘ Speak up, gentlemen, if you please/ I said 
to them. ‘We must have no mysteries here. 
What have you to say ? ’ 

“ The company began to prick up their ears. 
Without raising his voice, M. de Bevallan sug- 
gested to me that the contract showed mistrust. 

“ ‘ Mistrust, sir ! ’ I replied, in my most impres- 
sive tone. ‘ What do you intend to convey by 
that ? Do you make that strange imputation 
against Mme. Laroque, or against me, or against 
my confrere here present ? ’ 

“ ‘ S-s-sh ! Silence ! No wrangling ! ’ said the 
Rennes notary discreetly ; ‘ But listen : it was 
agreed in the first place that the legal system 
of dotation should not be insisted on.’ 

“ ‘ The legal system ? And where do you find 
that mentioned ? ’ 


226 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“ ‘ Oh, my dear sir, you know that you have 
practically reconstituted it by a subterfuge.’ 

“ ‘ Subterfuge, monsieur ? Allow me, as your 
senior, to advise you to withdraw that word from 
your vocabulary.’ 

“ ‘ But, after all,’ murmured M. de Bevallan, 
‘ I’m tied hand and foot, and treated like a 
school-boy.’ 

“ ‘ Indeed, sir ! What, in your opinion, are we 
here for at this moment — a contract or a will ? 
You forget that Mme. Laroque is living; that 
her father is living, and that it is a question of 
marriage, not of inheritance — at least, not yet. 

. . . Really, you must have a little patience ; you 
must wait a little.’ 

“ At these words Mile. Marguerite rose. 

“ ‘ That is enough,’ she said. — ‘ M. Laubepin, 
throw that contract into the fire. Mother, let 
this gentleman’s presents be returned.’ 

“ Then she rose and left us like an outraged 
queen. Mme. Laroque followed her, and at the 
same time I threw the contract into the fireplace. 

“ ‘ Sir,’ said M. de Bevallan in a threatening 
tone, ‘there’s some trickery in this, and I will 
find it out.’ 

“‘Sir,’ I replied, ‘allow me to explain it to 
you. A young lady, who, with a just pride, 
227 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

values herself very highly, feared that your offer 
might have been influenced by her wealth ; she 
wished to be certain ; she has no longer any 
doubts. I have the honour to wish you good- 
day !’ 

“ Thereupon, my friend, I went after the 
ladies, and — upon my honour they embraced me. 

“ A quarter of an hour later, M. de Bdvallan 
left the chateau with my colleague from Rennes. 
His departure and disgrace have naturally loos- 
ened the servants’ tongues, and very soon his 
imprudent intrigue with Mile. Helouin was re- 
vealed. The young lady, already suspected on 
other grounds for some time past, has asked to be 
released from her duties, and the request has been 
granted. It is needless to say that our ladies will 
secure her future. 

“Well, my dear fellow, what do you say to 
all this ? Are you worse ? Y ou’re as pale as 
death ! ” 

This unexpected news had aroused so many 
emotions — pleasant and painful — that I felt my- 
self on the point of losing consciousness. 

M. Laubdpin, who has to leave at daybreak 
to-morrow, came back this evening to wish me 
farewell. After some embarrassed remarks from 
us both, he said : 


228 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“ Never mind, my dear boy, I’ll not cross- 
examine you on what is going on here ; but if 
you should require a confidant and a counsellor, 
I ask you to give me the preference.” 

As a matter of fact, I could not confide in a 
heart more sympathetic or more friendly. I gave 
the worthy old gentleman the particulars of my 
relations with Mile. Marguerite. I even read 
some pages of this journal to him to show him 
more exactly the state of affairs, and also the state 
of my heart. I hid nothing from him save M. 
Laroque’s secret. 

When I had finished, M. Laubdpin, who had 
suddenly become very thoughtful, began : 

“ It is useless to conceal from you, my friend, 
that when I sent you here I intended you to 
marry Mile. Laroque. At first everything went 
as I wished. Your hearts, which I believe are 
worthy of one another, could not associate with- 
out sympathizing, but this strange event, of which 
the tower of Elven was the romantic scene, en- 
tirely disconcerts me, I must confess. Allow me 
to tell you, my young friend, that to jump out 
of window at the risk of breaking your neck 
was in itself a more than sufficient proof of your 
disinterestedness. It was quite superfluous to 
add to this honourable and considerate proceeding 
229 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

a solemn oath never to marry this poor girl ex- 
cept in contingencies we cannot possibly expect 
to see realized. I pride myself on being a man 
of resource — but I fully recognise that I cannot 
give you two hundred thousand francs, or take 
them away from Mile. Laroque.” 

“ Then tell me what to do, sir. I have more 
confidence in you than in myself, for I see that 
misfortune, which is always exposed to suspicion, 
has made me excessively susceptible on questions 
of honour. Speak. Do you counsel me to for- 
get the imprudent but still solemn oath which 
alone at this moment separates me from the happi- 
ness you had imagined for your adopted son ? ” 

M. Laubdpin rose ; his thick eyebrows drawn 
down over his eyes, he strode about the room for 
some minutes, then, stopping in front of me and 
seizing my hand, he said : 

“Young man, it is true that I love you like 
my own child ; but, even at the cost of breaking 
your heart and my own, I will not be false to 
my principles. It is better in matters of honour 
to do too much than too little, and as regards 
oaths, all those that are not extorted at the point 
of the knife or the mouth of a pistol, should 
either not be taken or should be kept. That is 
my opinion.” 


230 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“ It is mine too. I will leave with you to- 
morrow morning.” 

“No, Maxime, stay here a little longer. I do 
not believe in miracles, but I believe in God, who 
seldom allows us to be ruined by our virtues. 
Give Providence more time. I know that I am 
asking a very courageous effort from you, but I 
claim it formally from your friendship. If within 
a month you do not hear from me — well — then 
you can leave.” 

He embraced me and left me to my quiet 
conscience and my desolate heart. 


October 12th . 

It is now two days since I have been able to 
leave my retirement and appear at the chateau. 
I had not seen Mile. Marguerite since we sepa- 
rated at the tower of Elven. She was alone in 
the salon when I entered. Recognising me, she 
made — involuntarily — an effort to rise. Then she 
sat motionless, and a flood of burning crimson 
dyed her face. It was infectious, for I felt that I 
was blushing to the forehead. 

“ How are you, M. Odiot?” she said, holding 
out her hand, and she spoke these simple words so 
gently, so humbly — alas ! so tenderly too — that I 
longed to throw myself on my knees before her. 

231 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

But I had to answer in a tone of icy polite- 
ness. She looked sadly at me, lowered her great 
eyes with an air of resignation, and went on with 
her work. 

Almost at the same moment her mother 
called to her to come to her grandfather, whose 
condition had become most alarming. For some 
days now he had lost voice and movement ; the 
paralysis was almost total. The last gleams of 
mental life were extinguished ; only physical sen- 
sibility and the capacity for suffering remained. 
The end was not far off, but in this energetic 
heart life was too deeply rooted to be relin- 
quished without an obstinate struggle. The doc- 
tor had foretold that his agony would last a long 
time. Still, at the first appearance of danger, 
Mme. Laroque and her daughter had tended him 
with the passionate self-sacrifice and utter devo- 
tion which are the special virtue and glory of 
their sex. The day before yesterday they broke 
down exhausted. M. Desmarets and I offered to 
take their places by M. Laroque to-night, and 
they agreed to have a few hours’ rest. The doc- 
tor, who was very much fatigued, soon told me 
that he was going to throw himself on the bed in 
the next room. 

“I am no use here,” he said; “the thing is 
232 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

over. You see the poor old fellow doesn’t suffer 
any more. That lethargic state is not painful. 
The awakening will be death. So we can be 
quiet. Call me if you see any change, but I think 
it won’t come till to-morrow. I’m dying for a 
sleep.” 

He gave a great yawn and went out. His 
language and his conduct before the dying man 
had shocked me. He is an excellent man ; but 
to render to death the respect that is due to it, 
one must not see only the brute matter it dis- 
solves, but believe in the immortal essence it 
releases. 

Left alone in the chamber of death, I sat near 
the foot of the bed, where the curtains had been 
withdrawn, and I tried to read by a lamp that 
stood on a little table near me. The book slipped 
from my hands. I could think only of the strange 
combination of events which, after so many years, 
gave this guilty old man the grandson of his vic- 
tim as witness and guardian of his last sleep. 
Then, in the tranquility of that hour and place, 
I recalled, in spite of myself, the scenes of 
tumult and bloody violence which had filled the 
life that was now ebbing away. I looked for 
traces of it on the face of the dying old man and 
on the large features defined in the shadow with 
233 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

the pale distinctness of a plaster mask. I saw 
only the solemnity and premature peace of the 
tomb. At intervals I went to the bedside to make 
sure that the weakened breast still heaved with 
vital breath. Towards the middle of the night an 
irresistible torpor seized me, and I slept, leaning 
my forehead on my hand. Suddenly I was awak- 
ened by a strange and sinister sound. I looked 
up, and a shudder ran through the marrow of my 
bones. The old man was half-sitting up in bed, 
staring at me with an intent, astonished look, 
and an expression of life and intelligence that 
I had not seen in him before. When our eyes 
met he started, stretched out his arms, and 
said, in a beseeching voice, whose strange un- 
known quality almost stopped the beating of 
my heart : 

“ Marquis, forgive me ! ” 

In vain I tried to rise, to speak. I sat petri- 
fied in my chair. 

After a silence, during which the dying man’s 
eyes were still fixed on mine beseechingly, he 
repeated : 

“ Marquis, deign to forgive me.” 

At last I summoned up strength to go to him. 
As I approached he drew back fearfully, as if 
shrinking from a dreadful contact. I raised my 
234 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

hand, and lowering it gently before his staring 
and terror-stricken eyes : 

“ Rest in peace,” I said ; “ I forgive you.” 

Before I had done speaking, his withered face 
lighted up with a flash of joy and youth. Two 
tears burst from his dry and sunken orbits. He 
stretched a hand to me, then suddenly the hand 
stiffened in a threatening gesture, and I saw his 
eyes roll between their dilated lids, as if a ball had 
gone through his heart. 

“ Oh, the English !” he whispered, and imme- 
diately fell back on the pillow like a log. He 
was dead. I called quickly, and the others came. 
Soon he was surrounded by pious mourners, weep- 
ing and praying for him. I retired, my soul 
deeply moved by this extraordinary scene, which 
I had resolved should ever remain a secret between 
myself and the dead man. 

This sad event brought me cares and duties 
which I needed to justify me in my own eyes 
for remaining in the house. I cannot fathom 
M. Laubepin’s motives for advising me to delay 
my departure. What did he hope from it ? To 
me he seems to have yielded to a vague presenti- 
ment and childish weakness, to which a man of 
his stamp should never have given way, and to 
which I also was wrong to submit. Why did he 
235 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

not see that besides bringing additional suffering 
on me, he put me in a position that is neither 
manly nor dignified ? What am I to do here now ? 
Would they not have good reason to reproach me 
with trifling with sacred feelings ? My first inter- 
view with Mile. Marguerite had shown me how 
hard and how unbearable was the trial to which I 
had been condemned. The death of M. Laroque 
would make our relations easier, and give my 
presence a sort of propriety. 


October 26th , Rennes. 

All is over ! God, how strong that tie was ! 
Flow it held my heart, and how it has torn it as it 
broke ! Yesterday evening about nine, as I leaned 
on my open window, I was surprised to see a faint 
light coming towards my house through the dark 
alleys of the park, and from a direction which the 
servants at the chateau do not frequent. A mo- 
ment afterward there was a knock at my door and 
Mile, de Porhoet came in breathless. 

“ Cousin,” she said, “ I have business with 
you.” 

I looked straight at her. 

“A misfortune?” I said. 

“No, it is not precisely that. Besides, you 
shall judge for yourself. My dear child, you have 
236 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

passed two or three evenings this week at the cha- 
teau. Have you noticed nothing unusual, nothing 
peculiar, in the attitude of the ladies ? ” 

“ Nothing.” 

“ Have you not even noticed an unusual se- 
renity in their appearance ? ” 

“ Perhaps I have. Allowing for the melan- 
choly due to their recent sorrow, they seemed 
calmer and happier than before.” 

“No doubt. Other things would have struck 
you if, like me, you had lived in daily intimacy 
with them for fifteen years. Thus, I have ob- 
served signs of some secret understanding and 
mysterious agreement between them. Moreover, 
their habits have been largely altered. Mme. 
Laroque has given up her brastro , her sentry-box, 
and all her little Creole fancies. She rises at mar- 
vellous hours, and at daybreak instals herself with 
Marguerite at the work-table. They are both 
taken with a sudden passion for embroidery, and 
have ascertained how much a woman can earn at 
that work in a day. In short, there is a riddle to 
which I cannot find the answer. But it has been 
told me, and though I may be intruding on your 
secrets, I thought it right to inform you at once.” 

I assured Mile. Porhoet of my absolute confi- 
dence in her, and she continued : 

237 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“ Mme. Aubry came to see me this evening 
secretly. She began by throwing her wretched 
arms round my neck, which displeased me very 
much. Then, to the accompaniment of a thou- 
sand jeremiads about herself — which I will spare 
you — she begged me to stop her relations on the 
brink of ruin. This is what she has heard, 
through listening at doors, according to her pretty 
habit : The ladies are trying to get permission to 
transfer all their property to a community at 
Rennes, so as to do away with the difference of 
fortune which separates you and Marguerite. As 
they can’t make you rich, they will make them- 
selves poor. I thought it impossible to let you 
remain ignorant of this determination, which is 
equally worthy of those generous souls and of 
those Quixotic heads. You will forgive my add- 
ing that it is your duty to put an end to this de- 
sign at any cost. I need not point out the regrets 
it will infallibly bring to our friends, nor the ter- 
rible responsibility it will throw on you. That 
you will see at a glance. If, my friend, you can 
from this moment accept the hand of Marguerite, 
everything will end in the best way possible. But 
in that respect you have tied yourself by an en- 
gagement which is not the less binding because it 
was made imprudently and blindly. There is then 
238 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

only one thing for you to do — to leave this coun- 
try and resolutely extinguish all the hopes that 
your presence here must inevitably encourage. 
When you are no longer here I shall have less 
difficulty in bringing these two children to 
reason.” 

“ Very well. I am ready. I will go this very 
night.” 

“Good!” she said. “When I give you this 
advice I obey a very rigorous law of honour. 
You have made the last moments of my long 
solitude pleasant, and you have given me back 
the illusion of the sweet attachments of life, 
which I had lost for so many years. In send- 
ing you away I make my last sacrifice ; it is 
immense.” 

She rose and looked at me for a moment with- 
out speaking. 

“ At my age we do not embrace young peo- 
ple,” she continued, smiling sadly; “we bless 
them. Adieu, dear child, and thank you. May 
God keep you ! ” 

I kissed her trembling hands, and she left me 
hastily. 

I hurriedly prepared for my departure, and 
then wrote a few lines to Mme. Laroque. I 
begged her to renounce a decision the effect of 
239 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

which she could not foresee, and which, for my 
part, I was determined to have no share in. I 
gave her my word — which she knew she could 
rely on — that I would never accept my happiness 
at the cost of her ruin. And I finished — for the 
sake of dissuading her from her fantastic project 
— by speaking vaguely of a future which might 
bring me fortune. 

At midnight, when everything was silent, I 
said farewell, a bitter farewell, to the old tower 
where I had suffered — and loved — so much. I 
slipped into the chateau by a secret door of 
which I had the key. Furtively, like a criminal, 
I passed along the empty and resounding gal- 
leries, guiding myself as I best could in the dark. 
At last I reached the salon where I had first seen 
her. She and her mother had not long left it, 
and their recent presence was revealed by a sweet 
and pleasant perfume which transported me. I 
searched, and I touched the basket where a few 
moments before she had replaced her embroidery. 
Alas, my poor heart ! 

I fell on my knees before the seat she gen- 
erally occupies, my forehead against the marble. 
I wept. I sobbed like a child. God, how I 
loved her ! 

The last hours of the night I spent in reaching 
240 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

the little town secretly, and thence I drove to 
Rennes this morning. 

To-morrow evening I shall be in Paris. O 
poverty, solitude, and despair, which I had left 
there, I shall find you again ! Last dream of 
youth — dream of heaven, farewell ! 


Paris. 

The next day, in the morning, as I went to 
the railway station, a post-chaise stood in the 
courtyard of the hotel, and I saw old Alain get 
out. PI is face brightened as he saw me. 

“Oh, sir, what good luck! You’ve not 
gone ! Plere is a letter for you.” 

I recognised M. Laubepin’s writing. He said 
that Mile, de Porhoet was seriously ill and was ask- 
ing for me. I only allowed time to change the 
horses, and threw myself into the chaise, after 
forcing Alain to get in with me. I questioned 
him eagerly, and made him repeat his news, which 
seemed incredible. 

The evening before, Mile, de Porhoet had 
received an official despatch through M. Laubd- 
pin, announcing her succession to the entire Span- 
ish property. 

“ And it seems,” said Alain, “ that she owes it 
to you, sir, for finding some old papers in the 
16 241 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

pigeon-house that have proved the old lady’s title. 
I don’t know how much truth there is in this, but 
if it is so, what a pity she has those ideas about 
the cathedral and won’t give them up, for she’s 
more bent on it than ever. When she first got 
the news she fell flat on the floor, and we thought 
she was dead. But an hour after she began 
talking about her cathedral, the choir, and the 
nave, the north aisle and the south, the chap- 
ter, and the canons. To calm her we had to 
fetch an architect and masons, and put the 
plans of her blessed building on her bed. At 
last, after three hours of that kind of talk, she 
quieted down a bit and dozed. When she awoke 
she asked for you, sir — M. le Marquis” (Alain 
bowed, closing his eyes) — “ and I had to run 
after you. It seems she wants to consult you 
about the rood-loft.” 

This strange event took me entirely by sur- 
prise. Nevertheless, my memory, aided by the 
confused details given me by Alain, enabled me to 
find an explanation, which more precise informa- 
tion completely confirmed. As I have before 
said, the affair of the Spanish inheritance of the 
Porhoets had gone through two phases. There 
had first been a long lawsuit between Mile, de 
Porhoet and one of the great families of Cas- 
242 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

tile, which my old friend had finally lost. Then 
there had been a new suit between the Spanish 
heirs and the Crown, the latter claiming on the 
grounds of intestacy. 

Shortly after this, while pursuing my re- 
searches in the Porhoet archives, I had, about 
two months before leaving the chateau, laid hands 
upon a curious document, which I will here tran- 
scribe : 

“ Don Philip, by the Grace of God, King of 
Castile, Leon, Aragon, the two Sicilies, Jerusa- 
lem, Navarre, Grenada, Toledo, Valencia, Gali- 
cia, Majorca, Seville, Sardinia, Cordova, Cadiz, 
Murcia, Jaen, of the Algarves, of Algeciras, 
Gibraltar, the Canary Islands, the West and 
East Indies, the islands and continents of the 
ocean, the Archduchy of Austria ; Duke of Bur- 
gundy, Brabant, and Milan ; Count of Hapsburg, 
Flanders, the Tyrol, and Barcelona ; Lord of Bis- 
cay and Molina, etc. 

“To thee, Hervd-Jean Jocelyn, Lord of Por- 
hoet-Gael, Count of Torre Nuevas, etc., who hast 
followed me throughout my dominions, and served 
me with exemplary fidelity, I promise, by special 
favour, that in case of the extinction of thy direct 
and legitimate progeny, the possessions of thy 
243 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

house shall return, even to the detriment of my 
Crown, to the direct and legitimate descendants 
of the French branch of the Porhoet-Gaels, as 
long as any such shall exist. 

“And I make this covenant for myself and 
for my successors on my royal faith and word. 

“Given at the Escorial, April io, 1716. 

“Yo el Rev.” 

Together with this document, which was 
merely a translator’s copy, I found the original 
text, bearing the arms of Spain. The impor- 
tance of this document had not escaped me, but 
I had feared to exaggerate it. I greatly doubted 
whether the validity of a title of such ancient 
date, and prior to so many momentous events, 
would be recognised by the Spanish Government. 
I even doubted whether it would have the power 
to give effect to it, even if it had the will. I 
had therefore decided to say nothing to Mile, de 
Porhoet about a discovery, the consequences of 
which seemed to me most problematic, and I had 
contented myself with sending the document to 
M. Laubdpin. As I had heard nothing more of 
it, I had soon forgotten it in the midst of the per- 
sonal cares with which I was overwhelmed at the 
time. However, contrary to my unjust suspi- 
244 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

cions, the Spanish Government had not hesitated 
to carry out Philip V’s covenant, and at the very 
moment when a supreme decree had handed 
over the vast possessions of the Porhoets to the 
Crown, it had nobly restored them to the legiti- 
mate heir. 

About nine that evening I stopped at the 
humble house where this royal fortune had arrived 
so tardily. The little servant opened the door. 
She was crying. 

From the staircase above came the grave voice 
of M. Laub£pin. 

“ It is he,” said the voice. 

I went up the stairs quickly. The old man 
grasped my hand warmly, and took me into Mile, 
de Porhoet’s room. The doctor and the cure 
stood silent in the shadow of the window. Mme. 
Laroque knelt at the bedside ; her daughter was 
arranging the pillow where the pale face of my 
old friend rested. When the sick woman saw me 
a faint smile flickered across her face. Painfully 
she moved one of her arms. I took her hand ; I 
fell on my knees ; I could not keep back my 
tears. 

“ My child,” she said, “ my dear child ! ” 

Then she looked intently at M. Laubepin. 
The old notary took from the bed a piece of pa- 
245 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

per, and, as if he were continuing to read after an 
interruption, he went on : 

“ For these reasons,” he read, “ I appoint by 
this holograph will Maxime-Jacques-Marie Odiot, 
Marquis de Champcey d’Hauterive, noble by heart 
as by descent, sole and universal legatee of all my 
property in Spain as well as in France, without 
reserve or condition. Such is my will. 

“JOCELYNDE JEANNE, 
“COMTESSE DE PORHOET-GAEL.” 

In my astonishment I had risen and was about 
to speak, when Mile, de Porhoet, gently retaining 
my hand, placed it in Marguerite’s. At this sud- 
den contact the dear creature trembled. She bent 
her young forehead on the mournful pillow, and, 
blushing, whispered something in the dying wom- 
an’s ear. I could not speak. I fell on my knees, 
and prayed to God. Some minutes passed in 
solemn silence, when Marguerite suddenly with- 
drew her hand with a gesture of alarm. The doc- 
tor came up hastily. I rose. Mile, de Porhoet’s 
head had fallen back ; with a fixed and radiant 
glance she looked towards heaven ; her lips half- 
opened, and as if she were speaking in a dream, 
she whispered : 


246 







The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

“ God ! the good God ! I see Him there . . . 
up there. . . . Yes . . . the choir . . . the golden 
lamps . . . the windows . . . the sun every- 
where. . . . Two angels kneeling before the 
altar ... in white robes . . . their wings 
move . . . God, they are alive ! ” 

This cry died on her lips, which remained 
smiling. She closed her eyes as if she were going 
to sleep, and suddenly an air of immortal youth 
fell on her face, making it almost unrecognisable 
to us. 

Such a death, after such a life, had lessons 
with which I desired to fill my soul. I begged to 
be left alone with the priest in the room. This 
pious vigil will not, I believe, be unavailing. 
From that face, irradiated with a glorious peace, 
where a supernatural light seemed to glow, more 
than one forgotten or questioned truth came home 
to me with irresistible force. Noble and holy 
friend, well I knew that the virtue of sacrifice was 
yours ! Now I see that you have entered into 
your reward. 

About two hours after midnight, yielding to 
fatigue, I longed to breathe the fresh air for a mo- 
ment. I went down the dark staircase and into 
the garden, avoiding the salon on the ground 
floor, where I had seen a light. The night was 
247 


The Romance of a Poor Young Man 

profoundly dark. As I approached the arbour at 
the end of the little inclosure, I heard a faint 
sound, and at the same moment a shadowy form 
detached itself from the foliage. I felt a sudden 
rapture ; my heart leaped, and I saw the heavens 
fill with stars. 

“ Marguerite ! ” I cried, holding out my arms. 
I heard a little cry, then my name murmured 
faintly, then sLence . . . and I felt her lips on 
mine. I thought that my soul was escaping 
from me. 

I have given Helene half my fortune. Mar- 
guerite is my wife. I close these pages forever. 
I have nothing more to intrust to them. What 
has been said of nations may be said of men : 
“ Happy are those who have no history.” 


248 


THE PORTRAITS 
OF OCTAVE FEUILLET 



THE PORTRAITS 
OF OCTAVE FEUILLET 


In spite of the fash- 
ionable popularity 
achieved by Octave 
Feuillet as early as 
the year 1855, a pop- 
ularity which never 
waned to his last 
hour, it seems that 
his life, which we 
should have pictured 
excessively brilliant 
and public, was in 
reality quiet and retired. The author of M. de 
Camors and of the Roman d'un Jcitne Homme 
Pauvre was, as his portraits attest, melancholy 
of temperament and contemplative of mind, a 
man who was happiest in his own study, who 
preferred the distant echoes of his literary tri- 
umphs in his home, to noisy manifestations there- 
of in the world of social pleasure. 

251 



OCTAVE FEUILLET 
In 1850. 

After a drawing by the engraver Monciau. 


The Portraits of Octave Feuillet 


Feuillet was the official novelist of the Second 
Empire, the pet writer of the Revue des Deux 
Mondes. He was received at Court among the 
distinguished guests who had the entrde at Com- 
piegne and Fontainebleau. His plays and proverbes 
were acted in the Imperial theatres, at fashionable 
watering-places, and on the miniature stages of 

marionettes. The Em- 
press treated him with 
marked distinction. It 
is difficult to under- 
stand why an author so 
honoured and so much 
sought after should 
have left so few por- 
traits — canvases, me- 
dallions, water-colours, 
or engravings. Feuillet 
evidently was not lav- 
ish of his time in his sittings to artists, for neither 
Dubufe, nor Carolus-Duran, nor Winte halter re- 
produced his features — a fact we find it almost 
hard to believe of a man who enjoyed the popu- 
larity of Feuillet. But we must accept the fact. 

Mme. Octave Feuillet, to whom I went for 
final confirmation of this supposed dearth of 
artistic documents relating to her deceased hus- 
252 



OCTAVE FEUILLET 

In 1879. 

After a sketch made in Geneva. 


The Portraits of Octave Feuillet 


band, showed me every- 
thing she had as memen- 
toes of the delicate psy- 
chologist to whose suc- 
cess she so largely con- 
tributed by her feminine 
diplomacy, her social ob- 
servations, and her sub- 
tle and very cultivated 
mind. 



u Alas ! she said, octave feuillet. 

“I do not know why I After a P hoto ^ a P h taken in l88 °- 
am not richer in pictures of my dear lost one, for 
he had endless opportunities of being painted, 
but he was always too nervous and too busy 

to undertake the sit- 
tings proposed by va- 
rious artists. This is 
why I can only show 
you a little portrait 
painted by Bonvin just 
before 1850, which rep- 
resents him with a 
Musset-like face, and 
agrees pretty closely 
with a drawing of the 

OCTAVE FEUILLET. ° 

The last photograph taken in 1889. same period by the en- 



253 


The Portraits of Octave Feuillet 


graver Monciau, which could easily be repro- 
duced.” 

“ Beyond these souvenirs of Octave Feuillet as 
a young man,” continued his widow, “ I have 



nothing but a drawing by Dantan, made at the 
time of the great success of the Sphinx at the 
Comedie Frangaise, that is to say, about ten years 
before his death, and a large canvas by Hirch, a 
full-length, painted after 1880. But isn’t it too 
dark for reproduction ? ” 

To these portraits of the author of Julia de 
254 


The Portraits of Octave Feuillet 

Trdcceitr we may add a number of photographs, 
all of them taken after i860. First, the large full- 
length portrait published by Goupil about 1869 in 
the Galerie Contemporainc. In spite of the de- 
fects inherent in all photographs, this is the most 
like him of all his portraits ; it is reproduced as 
the frontispiece of this volume. We have given 
several others, among them one from Monciau’s 
drawing, which shows us an Octave Feuillet of 
thirty-five, who is nevertheless somewhat morose- 
looking, and various presentments of the quinqua- 
genarian Academician, with the white hair and gray 
beard of a man still in his prime, which offer a 
much nobler and more attractive semblance of the 
writer who has been called “ The family Musset.” 

After the death of the famous novelist and 
playwright, the sculptor Crauck executed a fine 
bust of him with the aid of instructions given him 
by one of the authors sons, Richard Feuillet. 
Another bust, of little interest and a poor likeness, 
is at the Hotel de Ville of St. Lo, where Feuil- 
let was born, and where he often came to rest at 
his property during the summer. 

Octave Feuillet’s iconological record certainly 
does not arrest attention by any curious, startling, 
or hitherto unpublished elements. We have no 
childish or youthful portraits, nothing but the cold 
255 


The Portraits of Octave Feuillet 

countenance of the man who had already “arrived ” ; 
no whimsical artistic sketch, not even any satirical 
caricatu. ., to compromise, enliven, or give a Bo- 
hemian touch to the dignified attitude and severe 
correctness of the writer of the Revue des Deux 
Mondes. It is, we think, to be regretted. Octave 
Feuillet remains an over official-figure for us, bear- 
ing too obviously the stamp of the photographer’s 
solemn poses, and sacramental “ Quite still, please.” 

OCTAVE UZANNE. 


THE END 



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